


Some Have Greatness Thrust Upon Them

by AisforAmy71



Category: my hero - Fandom, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bakugou Katsuki Swears A Lot, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Heavy Angst, M/M, Major Character Injury, Manga Spoilers Eventually, Midoriya Izuku is a Good Friend, Non-Canonical Character Death, Not Beta Read, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Midoriya Izuku
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2020-07-28 17:42:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 35
Words: 230,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20067997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AisforAmy71/pseuds/AisforAmy71
Summary: An AU what-if that explores what would happen if All Might lost his first big confrontation with All for One. When All Might is fatally injured after his battle with All For One, nine year old Midoriya Izuku forcibly receives One For All, unbeknownst to anyone...not even Izuku. It will be up to Inko and Gran Torino and as many favors as they can pull in to keep the boy safe from his new quirk until he can learn to use it, or until a suitable vessel can be found. With the Symbol of Peace out of the picture, the world just became a much more confusing place for everyone.





	1. The End Of An Era

**Author's Note:**

> This is an idea that has been stuck in my head for a while. This will eventually see Izuku into Yuuei and roughly follow most of the events, but without All Might to mentor Izuku, things will obviously have to be different. I’ll probably be as surprised as you by what I come up with, TBH. Please keep in mind that I work two part time jobs a day, so my window for writing is pretty small. I’ll do my best to get chapters out in a timely manner, but I can’t promise any type of set schedule.
> 
> As always, kudos and comments are ALWAYS greatly appreciated, even just a smiley face makes my day!

Midoriya Izuku was probably in big trouble. His class was on an overnight field trip, and they had all just returned to the inn where they would be staying after a long day of viewing historical landmarks. He had just snuck out, and was now AWOL from the dumb trip. The day _would_ have been interesting, and even fun, if it hadn’t been for Kacchan and his stupid friends.

It had started with simple teasing, and Izuku had been able to ignore them. If he got upset every time they jeered at him or taunted him for being quirkless, he’d never stop being upset, _ever_. Thanks to the Very Unhelpful teacher, though, Izuku had been placed in a ‘buddy group’ with the kids that picked on him the most. He’d tried to keep as far away as possible from the other boys, but it was hard when they sought him out and ‘accidentally’ tripped, kicked or pushed him. His tormentors were bored with the dry historical facts and old statues within the first hour of the day, and had turned picking on ‘Deku’ into a sport for their amusement. When Izuku complained to the chaperone, he was told to stop being a tattle tale and just to stick with the group and pay attention.

By the end of the day, Izuku had scrapes on both knees, his scalp was sore from having his hair pulled, and what felt like a collection of bruises was forming in places that the teachers wouldn’t see them. He had been a constant target for three spiteful boys all afternoon, and was sore and tired. When they had arrived at the inn and were told they had two hours of free time before dinner, Izuku had taken his backpack and fled. He’d snuck past teachers who were standing around the lobby complaining about their day, and out of the front doors. There was a park nearby he had seen from the bus, and his plan was to hide out there and get some peace and quiet before being forced back into the company of the three worst bullies in his class. He would probably be in big trouble if he got caught, but it was worth it.

He was nearly there when he heard Kacchan calling out to him to stop. Izuku wasn’t stupid, no matter how many times the other kids said he was. He checked over his shoulder and saw the trio hurrying in his direction, Tsubasa’s large, leathery wings hard to miss even at a distance. Izuku took off running, dodging behind cars and around buildings to hide from them. If they had been comfortable messing with him like that around adults, who knew what they’d do when there was no fear of being caught? He ran blindly through alleyways and side streets until he was sure he couldn’t hear them anymore, then crouched down behind some crates behind a small warehouse to wait a while for them to lose interest and go away.

Once his breathing evened out, Izuku became aware of a couple of things. The first was that he wasn’t exactly alone. There was a crumbled brick wall across the alley, and there was a pair of boots sticking out of the rubble. One of the boots moved, and told him that there was someone lying there. A drunk, maybe? The second thing he noticed was ragged breathing that was not his own. Izuku’s heart began to pound in fear, but he stepped closer to the boots a bit at a time, calling timidly, “Hey! Hey, are you okay? Do you need help?”

There was a drawn out groan, and Izuku dared to move his trembling form over to see something that made him cry out in alarm. All Might. The number one hero, All Might, was lying in a pool of his own blood, struggling to sit up, in spite of the gaping wound in his side. 

**“HELP!”** Izuku shouted down the alley when he finally comprehended what he was seeing. “** HELP! _PLEASE!_"**

He rushed over to his idol and knelt beside him gingerly. “I-I-I-I’ll call for help All Might! Just hang in there!” He fumbled with his backpack, spilling his notebooks and pencils all over the ground in his attempt to find the cell phone his mother had bought him for emergencies. It only had her number and the emergency services number in it, so it was easy, once he found it. He gave the operator the best description of his surroundings that he could, and was going to stand and run to the nearest street to look for more immediate help, when a large hand grabbed hold of his pant leg, stopping him in his tracks.

“Stay,” All Might rasped. His voice sounded wet and rough, his breathing shallow. “Stay. Too late. No time.”

“I’ll stay. I’ll stay, so just rest. Help is coming! Just relax!” Izuku told him desperately, dropping back to his knees with his phone forgotten on the ground. “You’ll be okay.” 

“I’m s’rry,” All Might forced out, though it looked like every word and movement cost him dearly. “Tell Sir N’teye.” The man was gravely injured, and Izuku couldn’t help but sob as his idol choked and spit out blood.

Izuku grabbed the souvenir dish towel he’d bought his mom from his backpack and pressed it to the wound on All Might’s side, wincing at how _soft_ the area felt beneath his hands. It should be firm where the rib cage was, shouldn’t it? He could hear sirens in the distance, now, and tried to encourage the hero to hang on while they waited. He kept up a steady stream of chatter, meant to be comforting as he willed the ambulance to hurry. All Might’s blood-covered hand reached up toward Izuku’s face as if trying to find his cheek, and the boy leaned forward to offer any comfort her could. He felt the injured hero’s wet fingers swipe over his mouth and chin; tasted the iron saltiness of blood as the hand fell away, too heavy for him to hold up, anymore. “M’s’rry. S’yrs now. Find. Gran. Tor. Ino. He c’n help.”

A police car, an ambulance and several other vehicles pulled up a moment later, but it was already too late. All Might had gone limp right in front of Izuku, who sat there covered in his hero’s blood, crying and shouting for help. He didn’t even feel the pain when he was roughly pushed aside by emergency workers who surrounded the fallen man and began trying to revive him. They loaded him onto a gurney and into the back of an ambulance and sped away in a matter of minutes, leaving a stunned little boy to explain to the police what had just happened.

Sitting in the police station, Izuku was handed a bottle of juice by a kind looking woman in a uniform, while he was asked questions he didn’t know the answers to. He felt cold, but also sweaty, and his heart was going so fast! There was too much happening at once. The police asking questions, people running up and down the corridor, the sound of dozens of voices shouting, cameras flashing, all washing over him in waves, making his head pound. His teacher had been called and was standing nearby, talking on the phone to someone, sounding angry and panicked.

“I don’t know! He wasn’t supposed to leave the inn! They were supposed to have free time until dinner, but he must have snuck out. He was being difficult all day, according to the chaperone in charge of his group and the other kids. I don’t know. Yes. The police are talking to him now. I have no idea. Right. Fine. I’ll let you know.”

Izuku blinked as the noise and voices seemed to suddenly get louder, then softer, then louder again. His vision started to blur, and he felt himself start to sway to the side and a hand caught him before he could fall.

“Hey! I think he’s in shock!” was the last thing he heard in a distant, detached way before blissful darkness closed over him.

When Izuku finally woke, it was quiet again. Only a soft beeping and whirring could be heard, aside from random background noises that sounded far away. He kept his eyes closed for a minute, enjoying the feeling of cool sheets over him and the rhythmic whirring he’d noticed before. When he finally opened his eyes, it was dark and he realized he didn’t know where he was. There was ambient light, so he could see that his was in a room curtains hanging around him, and one of those ceilings with noise absorbing tiles, like the ones at school. This wasn’t school, though. He turned his head and saw machines on poles next to the bed he was laying on, and the machines had screens with numbers displayed on them. The bed itself had rails on the sides, and he realized at last that he must be in a hospital.

Why was he in a hospital? Had he been in an accident? They last thing he remembered was… 

“ALL MIGHT!” 

He hadn’t meant to shout, but the memory had come so fast and hit him so hard. He jerked upright, fists twisted in the sheets as he immediately stifled a sob. Tears came to his eyes as he remembered All Might lying in that alley, bleeding. The ambulance, the police, his teacher, the headache. His heart began to thunder in his chest again, and the beeping from the machine became more rapid. A moment later, there was a knock at a door he couldn’t see because of the curtains, and the sound of someone coming in. The curtain was pulled aside to reveal a nurse wearing a neat white uniform and a smile that was probably supposed to be calm and non-threatening. She approached the bed, checked the display on the machine and spoke to him with a soft voice. 

“You’re finally awake. That’s good’ you’ve been out for a while. How do you feel?”

“What happened to All Might? Is he okay? He’s okay, right? Where did they take him? Is he here?” Izuku was overflowing with questions, and they all wanted to spill out of him at once.

“Hmmm,” the nurse said noncommittally, “I can’t tell you anything about that, but I can tell you that you need to try to relax a bit. Your heart is racing, and that’s not good. You went into shock earlier and fainted. Let’s not have that happen again.”

She pulled something from her pocket, and reached over his head to find an IV line that he hadn’t even realized was in his arm. She screwed a syringe into the port on the tube, and kept her voice low and soothing as she very slowly pressed the plunger to deliver a clear liquid into the IV.

“Right now, you need to rest, and this will help you sleep. Your mother was here earlier, and will be back again in the morning. You’ll probably get to go home, then. Right now, it’s the middle of the night.”

“But what about All Might?” he managed to demand, but found his speech was slurred as the medication she had delivered entered his system. His eyes felt heavy and he was already mostly asleep as she made a note on a clipboard and stepped quietly out of the room.

The next time Izuku woke, the room was full of light. The curtains around his bed had been drawn back, and a window to his right was letting in the morning sun. His mother was sitting at his bedside, holding his hand as she spoke quietly on the phone. When she noticed he was looking at her, she hurriedly said goodbye to whomever she was talking to and hung up.

“Hey,” she said gently, reaching out to brush a curl from his forehead. “How do you feel?”

Izuku’s eyes watered at the tired, sad expression on his mother’s face. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” he asked equally quietly, his voice wobbling. “All Might.”

His mother’s chin wobbled in a mirror image of his own, and a tear fell from her eye and left a trail down her cheek as she nodded. “He is. I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry you had to go through that. It must have been so scary.”

Tears fell unchecked from Izuku’s eyes as the grief washed over him. There was still a feeling of surrealism about the very idea that such a strong, good, man could cease to exist in the span of a few moments. “I was too late to help,” he said, as if confessing a grave sin. “I tried, but I couldn’t. If I had called them faster or gave them better directions, maybe…”

“Izuku. Stop,” his mother ordered, putting her hand gently over his mouth to physically halt the flow of words. “There was nothing you could have done. _Nothing_. They told me you tried and that you did everything you could and that you were so, so brave. This. Is. Not. Your. Fault.”

She took her hand from his mouth, and he let out a tiny wail of despair. “I wasn’t. I wasn’t brave! All I could do was cry and he tried to tell me to find something, but I didn’t…”

“Take a deep breath, Izuku,” his mother prompted, managing to keep her voice calm, despite the tears streaming down her face. Her heart was breaking for her son, who had witnessed something no untrained person should have to witness. “All Might had been in a very big battle before you found him; a villain that was almost as strong as he was. He was just hurt too badly to survive his injuries. No one could have saved him, even with the best healing quirk. The only person to blame is the villain that attacked him. Certainly not you. You tried to help, and that makes you a hero, too.”

She choked on a small sob as the words left her mouth, and she tried in vain to hold back her weeping. All her baby boy had ever wanted was to become a hero like All Might. Now she was calling him a hero in the worst possible scenario, and it broke her heart all over again. Izuku didn’t miss the irony of her words either, and a fresh sob escaped him as his mother drew him into her arms in a fierce hug, and they held onto each other until the tears ebbed enough to gain control of themselves. Inko offered tissues before taking some herself, and they wiped their eyes and noses just as there was a quiet knock on the door. 

A doctor entered this time, with a man in a suit and trench coat. There was a badge clipped to the man’s belt, but he wore a kind expression, even though there were dark circles under his bloodshot eyes.

“Midoriya-san,” The doctor greeted. “I am Dr. Kamikawa. I’ve come to check on Izuku and see if he is well enough to go home today.”

“Please excuse the intrusion Midoriya-san, my name is Tsukauchi Naomasa, I’m a detective from the Musutafu police force. I would like to have a word with you and Izuku, if you feel up to it.”

The doctor reviewed the chart in his hand, and went about looking in Izuku’s eyes, checking his pulse and blood pressure readings, listened to his heart and lunch before he nodded in satisfaction. When he promised to write a discharge order, Izuku was relieved that he wouldn't have to stay here much longer. He had never had to stay in one over night before, but he now knew he hated hospitals.

“I think that’s up to Izuku,” Inko said as the doctor left them alone. “I don’t want him any more traumatized that he already has been.”

“I understand,” the detective said. “I promise I’ll be as brief as I can, and will try not to upset him too much.”

Inko and Tsukauchi both looked to Izuku for permission for the detective to talk to him, and he regarded them for a long moment, before nodding reluctantly. He wasn’t looking forward to reliving yesterday again.

“Thank you, Izuku-kun, I know you already talked to some police yesterday, but I’m a little different than them. I’m a detective, and it’s my job to find out exactly what happened, how it happened, where, when and why. It’s like a puzzle I have to put together to see the whole picture.” The detective took a seat by the bed, so he could be more on eye level with the weary looking boy. “I also have a quirk called, ‘human lie-detector’ that lets me know if someone isn’t being truthful, so that helps me out a lot in investigations. I know that you don’t have any reason to lie, so I’m not worried about that, but it can come in handy when some people try to hide the puzzle pieces from me while I’m working.”

“That sounds like a really interesting quirk,” Izuku told him, his natural curiosity and propensity for analyzing quirks rising to the surface. At any other time, he would have taken the opportunity to pepper the man with questions while he took notes about it. Now, however, was not the time, he thought sadly. Now was the time to hand over a puzzle piece.

“I’m glad you think so,” Tsukauchi smiled gently. “Do you think you could tell me what happened yesterday? Why were you in that alley at that time? Did you hear or see something that made you investigate?”

“No. I was...I was hiding,” he answered, a slight blush of shame dusting his cheeks. “Kacchan and the others had been picking on me all day, and I just wanted to go to the park and get away from them for a while.”

Inko tsked under her breath upon hearing this, but remained silent, though her eyes flashed angrily. Tsukauchi made a mental note to explore that reaction a little more, later. Right now, it was important to let the boy speak.

“I snuck out past the teachers and was walking to the park; I knew where it was because I saw it from the bus when we were going to the inn. I was almost there, when Kacchan, Tsubasa-kun and Omura-kun started chasing me, so I ran away. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention, I just made a bunch of turns and stuff until I thought I’d lost them. I was near a warehouse building that had produce trucks parked behind it, and I crouched down behind some crates. That’s when I saw his boots.” Izuku stopped and took a sip from the cup of water his mother handed over to him.

“So, that was the first time you noticed something that wasn’t right?” Tsukauchi coaxed, pleased with the amount of detail the boy was providing. He seemed quite intelligent and well-mannered, and he wondered why he’d been targeted by the other boys. He could get to that later, though.

Izuku nodded and swallowed around the lump forming in his throat. He took a deep breath before continuing. “I didn’t know it was A-All Might. I thought maybe someone was drunk or something. Then I noticed the brick wall behind him was broken and stuff, and I heard him make a noise like, _’uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh,’_ so I went over to see if someone needed help. That’s when I saw it was...him.”

“All Might,” the detective clarified.

“Yeah,” Izuku croaked, taking another drink of water. “He looked...bad. Really bad. He had a big wound right here.” He pointed to his own side, indicating where All Might’s worst injury had been. “I think I screamed or yelled for help. It’s kind of hard to remember.”

Trauma could do that for you, sometimes. The detective nodded and made a note on the pad he’d pulled out. Inko went to the far side of the bed and perched beside her son, holding his hand as the tale became harder to tell.

“I got out my emergency phone and called for help. I didn’t know the address, so I described where I was. I was gonna run to the road to look for more help, but he...he stopped me. He told me to say ‘sorry’ to a...night guy?” Izuku paused there, looking to Tsukauchi to see if he knew what that meant.

“Maybe he said ‘_Nighteye_?” the detective asked, pretty sure of the answer, already.

“That was it. He said to say sorry to him. He said to find something…” Izuku screwed up his face as he searched his memory for the exact words All Might had said to him, “find Grand Torpedo? No… it sounded like that, it wasn’t that though. Grand Tor...Tor...eee...no. I’m sorry! It’s so hard to remember! It was hard to understand ‘cause he was bleeding and stuff, and the sirens were coming, and I didn’t have time to look to find whatever it was he wanted me to look for. The medical people came and took him away right after that.”

Tsukauchi made more notes on his little book and looked up at Izuku with a tired smile that tried, but didn’t quite meet his eyes. He was exhausted, and had just lost one of his very best friends in the world. Now, he had to piece together everything that had happened leading up to his brutal death. 

“You did great, Izuku-kun, thank you very much,” he told the boy sincerely. I’m going to leave my card with your mother, and if you think of anything else you can call, or have her call and tell me, okay?”

He reached into the pocket of his coat and took out a business card with all of his contact information on it and handed it to Inko. “We’ve tried to keep Izuku’s involvement out of the press, but please be careful for the next few weeks. The press is having a field day with this, and can get very ugly and personal in cases like this,” he warned. “If they catch up to you or give you problems, call me and I’ll arrange to send someone over to clear them out.”

“Thank you, detective. I just want to take my son home now.” Inko said, tucking the card into the purse at the end of the bed.

He nodded and solemnly shook hands with Izuku, thanking him again for his help, then he left as quietly as he’d come in.

Less than an hour later, Izuku was discharged from the hospital, his mother holding a prescription for anti-anxiety medication to take as-needed, if he found himself struggling in the coming days and weeks. She also had referrals to counselors that could help him with his trauma, if the felt the need. Dressed in the clothes his mother had brought from home and holding the backpack someone had retrieved from the scene, Izuku rode in the taxi someone had called for them back to their apartment. It felt so surreal still, and he walked up the steps robotically, thinking that on a normal day he would have been just coming home from his field trip and looking forward to having lunch with his mother.

“Izuku,” Inko said was they stopped in the entryway to remove their shoes, “Go and take a bath and get cleaned up. Then I want to talk about those boys from the field trip.”

Izuku paused for a moment, trying not to wince, then nodded as he padded down the hallway to the bathroom. He had done his best over the years to hide how bad the bullying had been, but there was no hiding it, now. He knew his mother had gone and spoken with Kacchan’s mom before, and had even gone to the school to complain, but that usually only made things worse. His mom got so upset when she found out about even the little things, like the kids throwing out his school shoes or hiding his backpack, that he pretended everything was fine most days, even when he had burns on his wrists from Kacchan holding him, or bruises on his arms from getting pinched or poked or punched by his gang. The other kids were afraid that they’d get picked on too, so it was easier to blame Izuku for being a ‘quirkless freak’ and ignore it when he got bullied. Kacchan was arrogant and sneaky, and definitely mean, but the teachers always took his word over Izuku’s because he had a strong quirk and excellent grades.

It hadn’t always been that way, Izuku remembered as he filled the tub and got undressed. They had been friends, once. A long time ago, they had played together, and then Izuku found out he didn’t have a quirk, and their dynamic had changed. They had gone from equals to Kacchan getting his impressive quirk and acting superior, to Izuku learning he had no quirk and becoming a specimen to pity, then to be scorned. It had happened quickly, once Izuku was found to be flawed; he became a contrast to showcase just how much better Katsuki was than anyone else. The other children took their cues from him and treated Izuku like something lesser. They had teased him and told the other children that if they played with him, they’d end up quirkless, too. It became a cruel game that Izuku, who had a kind and sunny nature, didn’t know how to combat.

Izuku spent a long time scrubbing himself clean, lost in thought. He had a moment of panic when he realized that the ‘dirt’ he’d been wiping at was actually the remains of dried blood. All MIght’s blood. He found an actual scrub brush, probably meant for cleaning the tub, and scoured his skin and nails until he looked severely sunburned, and no trace of blood remained. He cried quietly the entire time, but got the job done without his mother hearing him. He soaked in the tub until his mother called in to him that lunch was ready, then got dressed and joined her at the table. Luckily she attributed his very pink skin to the bathwater being too hot.

They ate in silence for a few minutes until Inko finally broached the subject. “The other boys were picking on you during the field trip?” she prompted gently. “Enough that you felt the need to break the rules and run away?”

He hung his head in shame and nodded. “They just got bored with history stuff and thought it was funny.”

“I see,” she said. She _did_ see, very well. “I know that it hasn’t been easy for you, Zu-chan. I...it’s partly my fault, because I didn’t do more. I thought you were doing all right, but I should have asked more questions.”

He looked up at that and spluttered. “Mom, it’s _not_ your fault. I didn’t tell you about it, because I didn’t want you to know. It only gets worse when you go talk to the school or Bakugou-san. It just makes them want to put me in my place, more. It doesn’t matter; it would be the same no matter where I went to school. Kids like to pick on people who are different.”

Inko sighed sadly. “I can’t let it slide this time. You say it would be the same anywhere else, but we don’t know that. Not every kid is like Bakugou Katsuki; you’re not. I’ve been looking into it since yesterday, and there’s a school not too far from here that has a pretty good reputation. It would be a bit of a commute each way, but nothing terrible.”

“You’ve already decided?” Izuku asked, meal forgotten. 

“Yes, baby. The bullies are reason enough, but your teachers have been nothing short of negligent. They didn’t protect you, then they didn’t properly supervise you on the field trip and let you get into a horrifying situation. THEN,” she huffed out, getting visibly agitated, “they had the _nerve_ to try to blame _you_ for their incompetence!”

“Mom, I _did_ sneak out…” Izuku pointed out, amazed at this show of anger from his usually timid mother.

“Tell me, was it difficult for you to sneak out? Did you have to wear a disguise or cause a diversion or anything like that?”

Izuku snorted at the mental image that brought forth, his mother was definitely watching too many crime dramas. “No. I just walked past the teachers while they were busy talking.”

“And no one noticed you walking out the front door, or thought to stop you!” she said triumphantly, as if she was a lawyer closing her case.

“That’s true,” he admitted softly, touched by his mother’s outrage on his behalf.

“And then _three more_ students waltzed right out after you, and they _still_ didn’t notice,” Inko’s cheeks were pink as she continued to get worked up. “The whole lot of them should be fired, instead of looking for a way to blame a boy who never should have felt the need to leave in the first place! I’m going down there tomorrow, and I might just bring that detective along, so he can tell if they’re lying when I call them out of their bullsh-- sorry. When I confront them with the facts.”

“Um...I don’t have to go, too, do I?” Izuku asked timidly. The last thing he wanted was to see the teacher’s glare when they got yelled at.

“Only if you want to. You _will_ be going to take an entrance exam for the new school tomorrow afternoon, though. You shouldn’t have any trouble with it, since you have excellent grades and it’s only general knowledge. We’ll have to see about getting you a new uniform, too.”

It sounded like tomorrow was going to be a busy day for any number of reasons.

Izuku spent the rest of the afternoon resting, avoiding watching television or listening to the radio. Both were sure to be full of news about All Might’s death, and he wasn’t...ready. Instead, he got out his _Hero Analysis for the Future No. 9_ out of his backpack and made a page for Detective Tsukauchi. He sketched the man from memory, trying to get his hair and proportions right before filling in what little he knew about the man. He might have been able to find out a little more from past crime reports on the internet, but knew there would be no avoiding current events, so he decided to wait.

He had decided to maybe go to the corner store for some snacks, when he heard his mother talking on the phone. His jaw dropped when he heard her actually talking to the detective and asking him to escort her to the school the next day! He was amazed! Didn’t she know that the police don’t work like that? You can’t just call them up and ask them do stuff like that! Then he heard her thanking him, and telling him she'd see him in the morning, and he actually laughed. His mother was wonderful, but a little crazy, he supposed.

The next afternoon, Izuku found himself being fitted for a new school uniform. His old school hadn’t required them, but this new one did. He would be wearing gray shorts or pants, a white collared shirt and a navy blue sweater vest. He had taken the entrance exam and it had been graded immediately for expediency’s sake. By Monday morning, he would be joining his new classmates at Jakku Elementary School. When he apologized to his mother for the cost of a new uniform, she shook her head and smiled. 

“Don’t you worry about that,” she said, looking satisfied. “Your old school’s principal is paying for this, and your P.E. uniform, and any other expenses that come up at this new school.”

Izuku raised his eyebrows at this, but said nothing. She had been in a rather determined state all day, and it was best to stay out of her way and let her do what she wanted to do when she got like this. Usually, it involved spring or New Year’s cleaning, but there were odd exceptions. 

“Next up is a haircut,” she said firmly as they left with his new uniform in a large bag. “I can barely see your eyes anymore. It’s much too long.”

Izuku was marched to a salon, where they cut off _way_ more than he wanted, but not as much as his mom suggested. Then she took him to a shoe store, since he was growing out of his old ones, and this new school required black shoes. By the time they were finished with all of their errands, Inko declared that she was too tired to cook dinner, and that they were eating out. If Izuku noticed that she was trying to keep him too busy to dwell on the past two days, he didn’t say so, but was grateful all the same.

That night, after preparing everything he’d need for school in the morning, Izuku finally mustered up the courage to turn on the television. There was something about All Might on nearly every channel: old cartoons they’d made of him, biographies, analysis, tributes, news stories...his face was everywhere, his trademark smile firmly in place while he helped people. Every channel called it the end of an era. The video of his Japanese debut was shown multiple times--the one Izuku had watched daily in the first years of his life, before learning he was quirkless. That hadn’t stopped his admiration; just any real hope he’d had of becoming a hero himself. His own bedroom was a tribute to the man who had shaped so much of Japan’s image during his tenure. When Izuku was just about to turn off the television and go to bed, Daikaku Miyagi, the famous one-horned news anchor announced that All Might’s body had been released by the police, and that his funeral would take place in two days’ time. There would be a funeral procession through the streets of Tokyo and a televised statement by the Prime Minister.

The newsman went on to list all of the many ways the country was mourning and showing it’s support, but Izuku had heard enough. With a heavy heart, he told his mother good night, and went to try to sleep.


	2. A Fresh Start

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izuku makes a new friend and learns a hard truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone read, commented and/or left kudos! It is my lifeblood! Also please note that I added some tags, just in case. There will be established background EraserMic (it’s just kinda _there_, no significant plot or anything about them - they’re just a couple who have been together for a long time.) There will also probably eventually be Midoriya/Shouto, but it’ll likely be a slow burn starting a few chapters from now. Let’s just get our boy on his way, first, shall we?

Izuku endured his mother’s fussing the next morning as she straightened his collar and tried to smooth down his unruly hair. He thought she might be even more nervous than he was about switching schools, and was flitting about making sure he had everything he needed and urging him to eat more breakfast. Finally, she had let him leave the house in time to catch the train, and went back to her own job, which she’d had to take sick time from because of...everything. 

It was a strange feeling, needing a transit pass to get to school instead of walking the fifteen minutes (while keeping an eye out for Kacchan and his cronies). The train was crowded, but not packed, and Izuku enjoyed the ride, observing the other commuters and any obvious quirks in evidence. After the train, it was a short ride on a bus, but it let him off directly across the street from Jakku Elementary School. It looked...ordinary, like any other school he’d seen. He didn’t know what he’d expected for the place his mother insisted he could make a fresh start, but maybe something more...impressive? He didn’t know, so he shrugged and went to find the main office. 

He was introduced to his teacher, who was younger than any of the teachers at his last school, and had a nice smile. She showed him where his shoe locker would be, and gave him a brief tour on the way to the classroom. Once there, she opened the door, and students hurried to their seats. After initial greetings, she urged Izuku to introduce himself. He nervously gave his name and the proper greetings, trying not to stutter too much. 

“Excellent. Class, please be sure to introduce yourselves to him during break time and make him feel welcome. Shinsou-kun, raise your hand,” the teacher called out. 

A rather thin boy with unruly indigo/purplish hair, dark purple eyes and poor posture sighed and raised his hand in the air. He didn’t seem very happy to be called on.

“Shinsou, please give Midoriya-kun any help he needs while he gets used to our class.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the boy answered, not even making eye contact with Izuku.

Midoriya gratefully hurried to the seat that he was pointed to in the center of the room, glad to be out of the spotlight. Some of the kids whispered a bit to each other about the new transfer student and looked at him curiously, but the teacher had a firm control on the class, and no one spoke to him as lessons began. 

For the most part, Izuku liked learning. School was a necessary means to an end, and his experience with it was not the best, but he loved finding out how things worked, and why. He had an easy time with academics, possibly because he’d had no friends to distract him in class before. He didn’t hold much hope that he’d be any more popular here than he had at his old school, but at least he didn’t have to be afraid of bullies. Yet.

The moment Izuku was really dreading was recess. There was a twenty minute break in the morning for the kids to go out and run around and play, and he imagined it could go one of two ways: the other kids would ignore him, or they would ask him what his quirk was, and _then_ ignore him or tease him when they found out he was quirkless. The closer recess got, the more nervous he became, until even Shinsou looked at him strangely. 

“You okay? Need the bathroom, or something?” he asked in a low voice.

“No, I’m okay,” Izuku whispered back, and tried to calm his fidgeting.

When they were finally dismissed to go outside, Shinsou merely gestured for Izuku to follow. They changed shoes and stepped outside into the school yard, where a lot of students were already engaged in games or conversations. 

“You can do what you want, just don’t leave the area, and don’t hurt anyone,” Shinsou told him offhandedly. 

“Um...okay.”

When Izuku didn’t make any move to walk away, Shinsou sighed and looked at him expectantly. “What?”

“What do you usually do during recess, Shinsou-kun?” he asked, not ready to throw himself into the proverbial lion’s den.

“Read,” came the short answer as the boy held up a paperback book.

“Oh. I like to read, too. You don’t hang out with your friends?” Izuku hedged, trying to stretch out the time he could avoid interacting with anyone else, even if he was being a bit annoying.

“Here we go,” Shinsou murmured almost too quietly to hear. Then he said more loudly, “No. I don’t have friends.”

Izuku blinked. The other boy seemed disinterested in pretty much everything, but didn’t seem mean, or anything. “Are you new here, too? Maybe we could be--”

“I’m not new here, the other kids are just scared of me because of my quirk, okay? You don’t want to hang out with me too much, or they’ll start avoiding you, too.” 

Shinsou was clearly agitated by now, and Izuku felt bad for upsetting him, but he wanted to understand. “Your quirk is scary? How?” Maybe he turned into a werewolf or something.

“It’s called _’brainwashing,’_ okay? I can make people do what I say, if I can get them to talk to me, so no one does.” Shinsou practically spat out the words, his face a mask of anger. He wasn’t expecting the new kid to look at him like Christmas had come early.

“That’s a _great_ quirk!” Izuku said in awe. “I mean, it might be scary if you used it to be cruel, or something. You didn’t did you?”

“What? No, I--” Shinsou was very confused.

“Then what are they worried about? You could be an awesome _hero_ with a quirk like that! You could just tell villains to give themselves up, and _boom!_ Job done!” Izuku’s mind was racing, as it often did when presented with an interesting quirk to analyze.

He didn’t notice that the other boy was staring at him with his mouth hanging open, and his eyes looking glassy. 

“Hey! New kid! You should get away from him! It’s dangerous!” one of the girls called to Izuku when she spotted them. 

“Yeah!” her friend agreed, “I know the teacher told you to ask him if you need help, but don’t talk to him! He can make you do stuff!”

Izuku was starting to get the picture. Shinsou was being bullied by the students here in the opposite way that Izuku had been bullied by Kacchan and his gang. These kids basically pretended that Shinsou didn’t exist, unless they were forced to interact with him. He could feel the anger building inside of him at how unfair this was.

“Did he ever do that to anyone here?” Izuku asked her boldly? “Did he ever make _you_ do stuff you didn’t want to?”

“No, but some of the other boys said he did it to them! He made them break a window to get them in trouble!” she told him. “He gets people in trouble all the time, but they can’t prove it was him! That’s why he’s dangerous!”

“I don’t believe you. Those kids probably blamed him because they didn’t wanna get in trouble for doing dumb stuff!” Izuku was almost sure of it, seeing as how Shinsou wasn’t even attempting to refute what she was saying. He recognized the signs of being mentally beaten down over time, because he’d experienced it for himself.

Shinsou was looking down at the ground, shoulders hunching as he tried to make himself small. “Don’t bother, Midoriya. They won’t listen.”

“Let’s go,” the girl told her friend. Turning to Izuku she called, “Don’t say we didn’t warn you when he gets you in trouble!”

“What a-a-a bitch!” Izuku stuttered out angrily as he watched them leave. He winced and looked around to see if anyone had heard him use such a rude word. Having them call his mom on the first day of going to a new school for having bad language would not impress anyone. “Sorry.”

“You’re an idiot,” Shinsou huffed out a laugh. “You just doomed yourself at this school, and you just got here like, five minutes ago.”

“Don’t worry about it, I was doomed, anyway,” Izuku said tiredly. He didn’t let himself consider that Shinsou might shun him too, when he said, “I’m quirkless. I switched schools because I was being bullied.” Better to know if he’d be abandoned now, rather than after he’d come to think of the other boy as a friend.

“Damn,” Shinsou said quietly. “Well, now I don’t know which one of us has it worse.”

“It’s not really a competition,” Izuku pointed out wryly, “especially when there’s no winners.”

“Maybe we should stick together, then. Two outcasts,” Shinsou suggested, suddenly looking a little shy.

“Maybe we should,” Izuku agreed with a small smile.

They bumped fists, and became fast friends.

The following week was an interesting one. As predicted, the other kids both tried to warn Izuku to stay away from the ‘dangerous’ Shinsou, and avoided him for insisting on being the outcast’s friend. Even though they weren’t yet aware that Izuku didn’t have a quirk, they decided he was a ‘weirdo’ and left him alone, and that was just fine by him. He’d rather have one true friend than a bunch of sheep, any day.

It turned out that he and Shinsou had a few things in common, especially a love of heroes. They discussed their favorites, and talked about how tragic it was that All Might was gone (though Izuku didn’t tell anyone that he’d been there when the hero had died), They liked a lot of the same music and movies and snacks, and what more did a pair of nine year olds really need to have in common to cement a friendship? 

Inko was relieved to see Izuku seeming to enjoy school for once. She didn’t know that he only had one friend, but even if she did, it was one more than he’d had before. She monitored his moods as she’d been warned to do after his traumatic experience, and gave him medicine help him cope and sleep on the nights he had nightmares. She convinced him to go and see the counselor recommended by the doctor, though Izuku wasn’t sure he needed it. Things were starting to look up, after all, weren’t they? The woman had been very kind and reassuring when Inko had accompanied him to the first appointment, then sat in the waiting room until they were finished. She wasn’t sure what they discussed, but Izuku was willing to continue seeing her, so she chalked it up as a win.

It was two weeks after the day that All Might had died that Izuku had his first sign that something wasn’t normal. He was in P.E. class, and they were doing standing long jump, sit ups, pushups, and other sorts of physical fitness evaluations. Izuku had never been particularly athletic, but wasn’t below average, either. While standing beside Shinsou watching the other boys take their turns with the long jump, Izuku suddenly flinched, feeling sharp, shooting pains in both of his legs. Shinsou noticed, and suggested he try stretching before it was their turn. Taking his advice, he reached down to touch his toes, did a couple of lunges and leaned into a quad stretch on each side. His legs seemed to tingle a bit, but the pain appeared to be gone by the time the teacher called him forward.

Izuku moved to the line in front of the sand pit and crouched like the teacher had shown them a few minutes before. He brought his arms back, and then threw them forward when he jumped to help give him momentum. When he landed, he was very confused to find himself on the _grass_, several feet beyond the five meter long sand pit. Shinsou was staring at him with a dumbfounded expression, and the teacher just looked annoyed.

“I said no quirks! I should give you zero marks, Midoriya!” the teacher scolded.

“But I didn’t!” Izuku said, walking back to speak with the teacher. His legs ached a bit, but the majority of the pain was gone.

“You’re going to try to tell me that you can jump that far normally? Stop joking, kid,” the man said with a smirk.

“I couldn’t have used a quirk, because I don’t have one,” Izuku said quietly, looking at his shoes. “I’m quirkless.”

Shinsou stepped forward and corroborated the story. “It’s true, sensei. There’s no way he cheated.”

“Then someone else must have used their quirk on you,” the man huffed. “Do it over, and we’ll call it good. If anyone interferes or uses their quirk,” he said to the kids standing around watching, ”there will be consequences.”

_‘There will be, anyway,’_ Izuku thought grimly, _‘since the class just heard me say that I’m quirkless.’_

He went back to the starting line and ignored the whispering he could hear starting up among his classmates. It didn’t matter. This time, when he jumped, he traveled a normal distance, and the teacher didn’t comment further. Someone using their quirk on him might explain the pain in his legs, too. Maybe he was being subtly bullied?

That night while he was lying in bed, the pain returned to his legs, and also started in his arms, shooting down to his fingertips. It was painful enough that he called out to his mother, not trusting himself to be able to walk out of his room. When she entered the room, she gasped and rushed forward, then blinked several times as if she’d seen something that wasn’t there. She could have sworn that she’d seen Izuku’s _veins glowing red._

“Mom?” Izuku asked, alarmed by her reaction.

“I thought I saw something, but it must have been my eyes adjusting to the light. What’s the matter, sweetheart?” She asked, sitting on the edge of his bed. “A nightmare?”

“No...it’s gone now, but there was this pain.” He explained about earlier at school and then pains he’d felt just now. This time they had lasted for well over a minute, and even now he felt an intense tingle, almost like an electric current running through his limbs. It was starting to worry him.

“It might be growing pains,” his mother guessed, not entirely convinced. Izuku was a little short for his age, but nothing out of the ordinary, and growing pains certainly wouldn’t allow him to jump that far. 

“You think so? I wouldn’t mind being taller, but _ouch!_” he said, sounding hopeful. “I hope it doesn’t keep hurting like this.”

“Do you want something to help you sleep?” Inko always asked, not wanting to give him medication against his will, or have him become dependent on it to sleep.

“I think I’ll be okay without it,” he decided after a moment’s consideration. “It’s fading, now.”

“You call me if it comes back or happens too often, okay? Growing pains are normal, but they should be too intense or last too long.”

She left him to try to sleep, and went and recorded his complaints in the journal she had begun keeping in the last two weeks. She wanted to be aware of any signs that he wasn’t coping well, or having PTSD, even if they didn’t seem obvious at first.

***

A month later, the pains were becoming an almost daily occurrence, and the pain was _intense_. Inexplicable bruising was showing up in large patches on this skin, and Inko received calls from the school nurse and the teacher about it. Knowing that Izuku was quirkless, they were baffled, because the red glow had _not_ been a trick of the light, after all. There were flashes of red around Izuku at odd times that were almost always accompanied by a searing pain in his limbs. The nightmares about All Might had also intensified, keeping him from getting proper rest. Inko began making appointments with specialists of all sorts to get to the bottom of things. Dozens of tests later, they still had no answers.

Finally, in desperation, Inko called the counselor and asked her if the symptoms Izuku was suffering could be psychological. The woman had been doubtful, but said it wasn’t impossible. She suggested that Izuku undergo a specific type of hypnotherapy session with a colleague with a specialized quirk to help him relive the day that All Might was killed, but from the perspective of an outside observer.

“It’s kind of like he’ll be watching a video of himself as a witness, instead of having that first person point of view,” the counselor explained. “With the added benefit of being able to narrate for us while he reviews the memory. You would be present, of course.”

Inko discussed the idea with Izuku, and though he was afraid, he also wanted to be able to know for sure what was going on inside his memories, as well as his body. He hated the nightmares even more than the pain he was having; he didn’t want to watch All Might die again and again every night for the rest of his life. He didn’t even protest when his mother called Detective Tsukauchi and asked if he would like to attend the session, as it might yield more information for his case.

Two days after talking to the counselor, Izuku was pulled out of school early ‘for another doctor’s appointment,’ and they traveled to another office, not far from his original counselor. They were met there by Detective Tsukauchi, who had brought a diminutive and grouchy looking elderly man who was leaning on a walking stick. Tsukauchi merely introduced him as a person with a unique insight into the case, and asked that he be allowed to attend the session as well. Neither Inko nor Izuku minded, if Tsukauchi was vouching for the man, and they all sat in a comfortable office, where the session would take place.

The psychologist that would be handling the hypnotherapy with his quirk was a middle-aged man with bland features, but a welcoming smile. He explained how he would use his quirk to get the information they wanted. 

“It’s not that different from regular hypnosis, really, there just isn’t any preparation or luring him into a relaxed state. It’s pretty instantaneous. I will have Izuku-kun lie down on the chaise over there,” he pointed to a leather couch with no back on it against the wall. “I’ll sit beside him with a hand resting on his head, and I’ll ask him to tell me about that day. He will be able to talk normally and recall things in detail that he might not consciously remember, and tell us about them without the emotions attached to them.”

Izuku was rather curious about it all; he couldn’t imagine not feeling grief and terror and everything else while remembering that day. When no one voiced any questions when asked, he went to the chaise and made himself comfortable. Chairs were turned to face the chaise so that everyone could observe, and the psychologist sat in a chair at the end of the chaise near Izuku’s head and started a voice recorder before he laid a hand on the mop of green curls.

Izuku tensed up for moment, feeling all eyes on him, then when he heard, “Izuku, tell us about the day All Might died, starting from when you first saw him.” All emotion, tension and trepidation left him, and his body relaxed to the point of near bonelessness. He couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or closed. 

It was kind of like being in a movie theater once all the lights turned off and the screen lit up. He saw himself from the outside, and watched as he approached the boots he’d caught sight of. He started speaking dispassionately, describing everything from the beads of sweat of All Might’s forehead, to the height of the wall he’d crashed into. He told them about the wounds the hero had sustained, not just the horrible hole in his side, but a gash on the side of his head, a leg twisted at an improbable angle, multiple abrasions. The tears in his hero costume and his mussed up hair were all seen with detachment, and narrated in detail as Izuku examined the scene in a way he hadn’t even been aware he’d noticed at the time. 

When it came time to talk about his brief conversation with All Might, Izuku had a clarity that had been completely absent when he’d been asked about it before. He spoke about all of the comforting words of encouragement he’d used to try and calm both All Might and himself as they waited for the emergency services to find them. He was finally able to tell them in detail what All Might had said, even though at the time, the hero’s words had been slurred and choppy and almost impossible to understand: _”I’m sorry. Tell Sir Nighteye._ He explained how All Might’s mouth and throat had been filling with blood, making him choke and spit, how he’d reached for Midoriya’s face and run his bloody hand across his lips and chin._ “I’m sorry. It’s yours, now. Find Gran Torino. He can help.”_

Izuku finished the narration when the emergency workers arrived and took the hero away. The psychologist nodded, “Very good, Izuku-kun. When I remove my hand from your head, you will be fully aware of where you are, you will feel awake and alert, and remember everything you’ve just told us, but will not feel emotional over it. You’ll feel refreshed and lighter, without any burden of guilt or shame.” After delivering these directions, he lifted his hand, and Izuku blinked and sat up. 

“That was...wow.” Izuku said in wonder. “I feel better!”

Inko had tears in her eyes again, but also felt a measure of relief. Now that the psychological wound had been opened and cleaned out, maybe it could start to heal normally. They thanked the man and praised his quirk before taking their leave. Tsukauchi had the micro card with the recording on it tucked safely in his wallet as they stepped into the hallway. 

“Midoriya-san,” the detective asked as they began to walk down the corridor of the office complex, “would you and Izuku-kun be willing to come back to the station with me? I think there might be some things for us to discuss.”

Inko agreed, and they rode in the backseat of Tsukauchi’s vehicle in silence to the police station, where they received visitor’s badges to pin to their shirts. Izuku stood close to his mother, remembering the chaos of his last visit to a police station. They were escorted to a cramped office that was full of stacks of files and file cabinets surrounding a desk with a computer on it. It was a tight fit for four people, but they managed.

“I’m sorry about the lack of space, but I wanted to be sure we have complete privacy,” Naomasa apologized as he closed the door, shutting out the background noise of the rest of the offices. “First of all, please let me give you a proper introduction. This man is Gran Torino.”

The elderly man nodded his head, still looking surly. “Pleasure.”

“Gran Torino was a person!” Izuku exclaimed, finally making a connection that had been missing for weeks. “All Might wanted me to find you. Are you...are you a healer?”

Gran Torino snorted. “I’m no healer, boy. Even if I was, I couldn’t have helped Toshi at that point.”

“Toshi?” Inko prompted.

“Yagi Toshinori was All Might’s real name,” Tsukauchi explained. “Gran Torino was his mentor, when he was in high school.”

“You taught All Might? Wow! You must be _old_!” Izuku said with all of the tact of a boy recently turned ten years old.

“Izuku!” Inko scolded, horrified.

Gran Torino only barked out a laugh and slapped the top of the desk with mirth. “Older’n dirt, boy. But I still got it where it counts.”

Tsukauchi smothered a smile behind his hand as Izuku seemed to realize how rude he’d been.

“I’m glad to have that mystery solved, but I don’t understand what that has to do with us,” Inko said, sounding confused. 

“It’s about the other thing All Might said,” Tsukauchi said, sobering up. 

“It’s yours, now,” Izuku supplied. “I don’t know what means, even after remembering everything.”

“I do,” Gran Torino said with a sad sigh. “That boy always did like to cause me trouble.”

Inko had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as she looked from Gran Torino to Detective Tsukauchi and back again. They both looked...regretful? 

“What does it mean, then?” Izuku asked, when no one seemed inclined to speak.

“Hold onto your seat kid, this is gonna be a wild story,” Gran told him grimly.

Inko and Izuku sat listening in disbelief when the old man told them about how Yagi Toshinori had been a quirkless middle schooler when Shimura Nana had gifted him with One For All, a stockpiling quirk that had been passed on to her from her master, and so on, back generations. He told them about the origins of the quirk and All For One, and how he’d destroyed all of the previous holders. Then he explained that Yagi Toshinori, in a desperate situation at the end of his life, had forcibly passed on that quirk to the only person available. Midoriya Izuku.

“Oh my God!” Inko said, shaking her head in denial with her hand over her mouth as though she might be sick. “No! No, no, no! This can’t be! That man! He _murdered_ All Might! He killed all of the people with that quirk, and now _Izuku_ has it? No!”

Izuku looked slightly green. He’d seen what the villain they had just called All For One had done to the greatest hero on Earth...what chance would he stand against something like that? He began to shake violently.

“Calm down, both of you!” Gran Torino commanded in a sharp voice. “You’re getting way ahead of yourselves.”

“_You_ calm down! You didn’t just find out that All Might gave his quirk to your baby without...without… asking! Without warning! Without anything but the name of some old man I’ve never even heard of before!” Inko said angrily. “All Might said you could help! Help with what?”

Gran Torino sighed and looked at Izuku. “Calm down, kid. Don’t pass out on us.”

Inko immediately swung her gaze to her son, to see that he was definitely having a panic attack. She put both hands on his shoulders to help ground him and started to guide him through breathing techniques she’s learned to help him. She spoke in calm, measured tones and breathed with him until he wasn’t on the brink of hyperventilation. His eyes slowly lost their haunted look, and his shoulders gradually relaxed into a semblance of normalcy. Once he was calmer, he accepted the bottle of water that Tsukauchi offered and looked down at his lap in shame for having lost control in front of people who were basically strangers.

“You good now?” Gran asked gruffly, but sounding apologetic. “I know it’s a lot to take in, but you’re not in any immediate danger. I promise.”

Tsukauchi was staring at Izuku cautiously, as if wondering if he should be calling for an ambulance. He looked relieved when the boy twisted the cap of the water and took a healthy swallow.

“Sorry,” Izuku said in a small voice. “I just…”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” Gran told him firmly. “No one could be prepared for something like this. Listen. All For One might not even be alive anymore. Toshi’s last battle with him may have cost him his life, but he went down fighting. There was a lot of evidence at the scene of the battle to suggest that someone came and took his body away, but also that All Might gave as good as he got. I won’t go into details, but I will say that no one normal loses that much blood and lives. If, by some outside chance, he did survive, he’ll be in no shape to fight anyone, anymore. He’s finished.”

Tsukauchi nodded gravely. “On top of that, no one has any way of knowing that All Might passed his power on before he died. That man couldn’t come after someone he doesn’t know about. No one has to know except us, and anyone we feel we need to tell to keep Izuku safe.”

“Okay. Alright.” Inko said, visibly trying to master her own panic, now that she’d helped her son through his. “We can handle this. We can.” She looked to Izuku who was wondering if he needed to start helping his mother with breathing, now.

“So...then... I have a quirk, now? All Might’s quirk? And...and he was quirkless before? Like me?” he asked tentatively, not ready to believe it.

“Looks like it, kid.” Gran said simply. 

“Is this why he’s been having pain and bruising and glowing red and all of that?” Inko asked, suddenly realizing that it made sense, after all. “Did this happen to All Might when he first got it?

“Can’t say that it did,” Gran Torino said consideringly. “Toshi took to One For All like a fish takes to water, but he was a bit older, and a lot bigger’n this bean sprout.”

Izuku merely rolled his eyes at the dumb nickname. “So, I just need to get bigger and all that will stop?”

“Among other things. You’re going to need training. We gotta get your body strong enough to handle the power it’s holding onto,” Gran told him. “Until then, do _not_ purposely try to use One For All. I don’t know what it would do to you, but from what your mother says is happening, it wouldn’t be good.”

“How do we explain to people that Izuku suddenly has a quirk?” Inko asked helplessly, looking lost.

“Toshi just told people that he was a late bloomer. He could go with that; people believe what they want to believe, and that story is a more likely explanation than the truth,” Gran Torino advised. “Just say it didn’t manifest earlier, ‘cause his body was too weak to handle it, but now that he’s getting older and stronger, it’s starting to develop. It’s not so far from the truth, after all.”

Tsukauchi was making notes on his computer while the rest of them discussed things, and suddenly a printer hidden in the corner sprang to life and spit out several sheets of paper. He leaned across the tiny space to snag them, and handed them across to Inko.

“Here is a quirk registration form. You can fill it out and mail it in, and Izuku will be listed as having a strength enhancement quirk. People update their files all the time, so it shouldn’t raise any eyebrows.”

“I still have an important question,” Izuku said, to Gran Torino. “What did All Might mean when he told me that you could help.”

“Help train you, probably, and explain to you what he’d done to you,” Gran said. “His predecessor was one of my best friends and a fellow hero, and left Toshi in my care when she lost her own battle with All For One. I ended up teachin’ him, and even took a job at UA during his third year to keep him safe and pound some sense into his thick head.”

“You were a hero? You’re going to train me? To be like All Might? Can I be a hero?” Izuku’s excitement was palpable in the room. He had believed his chances of becoming a hero had been destroyed when he was four, now he not only had a quirk, he had _All Might’s_ quirk.

“I dunno about being a hero, kid. That part would be up to you to earn. I can only point you in the right direction.” Gran said, running a tired hand through his thinning white hair. “I’m really too old for this.”

Inko’s mind was racing as she mentally put all of the pieces in place. Her and Izuku’s lives were going to change, probably forever, and she needed to be prepared. “What will our first step be?”

“I’ll have to make some calls. There is one other who knows All Might’s secret, who would be thrilled to help out his successor. I’d have to have your permission to tell them about Izuku, but I would trust him with my life. He has the resources to get Izuku on track and into shape.”

“I thought you were the one who was going to do that,” Inko said, while Izuku nodded in agreement with her.

“Ma’am, I live a good hour away by bullet train. I’m not close enough to monitor the boy that closely. Nezu is the principal of Yuuei, and has all sorts of heroes he can call on for help.”

“Are you married, Torino-san?” Inko asked him out of the blue. “Do you have a family at home?”

“Just call me Gran,” he said gruffly, “Or Sorahiko. And, no. I never married or had kids. I’m just a cranky, old retiree who can’t be jumping on a bullet train all the time to check on a kid.”

Inko smiled smugly, and Izuku’s eyes widened. He knew that look. He put a hand on her arm. “Uh...mom…”

“Then we’ll just have to move you in with us!” Inko declared, ignoring Izuku’s attempt to dissuade her. She turned into the nicest steamroller anyone had ever seen.

Gran Torino’s jaw dropped as he stared at her. “What.”


	3. Change Is The Only Constant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting stronger is a lot of hard work!

Izuku sat at his school desk, looking half asleep and holding his head up with a hand propped under his chin. He’d spent the previous three days packing boxes, moving furniture and making multiple trips up and down the apartment building’s stairs. His mother had decided that their apartment was far too small for three people to live in, and just a week after deciding that Gran Torino would be moving in with them, she began hunting for a new place for them all to live. She had found a small town home closer to Izuku’s new school (and Hitoshi's house!) with two floors and three bedrooms, and had proceeded to use every bit of the time she wasn’t at work to get them moved. Izuku, of course, couldn’t leave his mother to do the heavy lifting by herself, and as a result was tired, sore and a just a bit cranky.

Shinsou walked into class and spotted him, then grinned. “You look like crap.”

“Pot meet kettle,” Izuku said with half a smile. “You always act like you’re a week behind on your sleep schedule.”

“That’s ‘cause I am,” Shinsou admitted with pride. “My house is noisy as hell, and I share a room with two other kids.”

“Oh, right. I forgot. Sorry.” Izuku apologized lazily. They had become comfortable in each other’s company, and often teased each other in a friendly way. “You live at the zoo.”

Shinsou snorted a laugh. “Might as well be.”

Shinsou was an orphan, having lost both of his parents when he was just two years old. Now he lived in a foster home with several other foster kids that he got along pretty well with, though most of them were quite a bit younger than him. He’d been at the same place for five years, now, and called his foster parents ‘mom’ and ‘dad '. It sounded like a chaotic life to Izuku, but Shinsou seemed content there.

During recess, the boys sat in their usual spot in the shade of a tree near the wall of the school, and talked about all of the stuff that Midoriya had been up to lately.

“I get to start going to martial arts classes next week,” Izuku told Shinsou, stretching out on the cool grass and pillowing his head on his hands. “You should go with me, if your parents can afford it.”

“I asked them, but they’re still ‘thinking about it,’ which usually means, ‘no,’ but they wanna put off disappointing me.” Shinsou said with a sigh. “Nayoko wants to take ballet lessons, and she asked first.”

“That sucks,” Izuku told him around a big yawn. “It would be more fun to do it if you were there, too.”

“I’m still freaking out that you got a quirk at ten years old,” Shinsou said for the millionth time since Izuku had told him the story Gran Torino had invented for him. Normally if there isn’t some sign of a quirk by age four, it’s extremely unlikely to happen at all, so it was a bit hard to swallow. “I mean...that never happens!”

“Except it does, I guess,” Izuku said, doing his best to shrug his shoulders while laying down. “At least I know why I get all glowy sometimes and my arms and legs feel like they’re about to catch fire.”

“Yeah. I hope that stops, once you start getting stronger.” Shinsou sympathized. He’d gotten intense headaches when his own quirk first started to manifest.

“Me, too. They say it probably will, so that’s why I’m signed up for martial arts and gymnastics. At least it’ll come in handy when I become a hero!” The idea of becoming a hero had re-blossomed in Izuku’s heart and grown deep roots in the short time he’d had to process that he had a quirk.

Shinsou smiled indulgently at him. “I’m a little jealous. You’ll have to try teaching me some of what you learn.”

“Of course! We’re friends, aren’t we?”

******

Shinsou had been correct; there would be no martial arts classes for him, as his parents simply couldn’t afford it. They were great parents and did the best they could, so he couldn’t resent them for it. Instead, he experienced them vicariously through Izuku, who excitedly told him what he learned each week, and gave him detailed lists of exercises that Shinsou should do at home to get stronger. It was fun to see his friend so excited about having a quirk at last, and his mood was infectious. The purple haired boy found himself smiling more and being more enthusiastic in competition (at least against Midoriya). It was nice to have a friend that didn’t judge him.

Izuku became very busy outside of school hours. After he and his mother hand moved themselves into the new house, Inko had gone and fetched Gran Torino (and his equally grumpy gray cat, who looked like it had been in it’s fair share of fights), who had complained and put up a fuss the entire time, but hadn’t stopped her from relocating him to Musutafu. She had simply put her hands on her hips and used her best ‘mom’ voice. “_Don’t tell me you’re going to back out on honoring All Might’s last wish!_” That had been the final straw, and the man had caved in and allowed her to pack up his few things and move him into the third room of their new house. Izuku had helped, and had been amazed by the images of a much younger Gran in a yellow and white caped hero costume, standing with various other heroes as he packed up pictures. In the coming days, Gran would find himself being forced to tell the boy story after story about his hero days forty or more years ago

Once installed, Gran had gotten to work making arrangements for the boy to start training in earnest. Every day before school, he had Izuku doing calisthenics and jogging around the neighborhood. Every day after school, he had some sort of activity planned for the boy, including martial arts once a week with a skilled side-kick and gymnastics twice a week with a retired hero named Jumpstart. Many nights, Inko would go to call Gran and Izuku to dinner, only to find Izuku fast asleep on the couch beside the old man, with the gray cat curled up on his lap, head lolled to the side to rest on Gran’s shoulder.

On days without extra classes, days, Gran had him down on the dumping ground that used to be Dagobah beach, hauling bags of trash to a huge dumpster he’d had delivered and put in the abandoned parking lot. When Shinsou heard about the beach clean up, he’d decided to join in as a way to get in free work-outs. It also counted toward community service at school, so his parents didn’t object at all. Three days a week, they’d meet wearing their shabbiest clothes and the sturdy gloves Gran provided. They hauled trash and small appliances out of the sand put it where it belonged. It was hard, sweaty work, but the boys managed to make a competition out of it, and it became more of a game. The old man (who Izuku had introduced as an old family friend that lived with them) sat in a lounge chair to supervise and call out advice. Their progress was slow, but it was still progress. Both boys were slowly putting on muscle, and the beach was a little less cluttered after a couple of months.

On the rare days off he was given (besides Sunday, which was always his to do as he pleased after his morning run), Izuku spent time with Shinsou, teaching him the proper way to fall or throw someone over his shoulder or any number of things he learned at his more structured activities. Sometimes they’d just hang out in Midoriya’s room playing video games, but it seemed like within six months of meeting each other, they were nearly inseparable. Both Inko and Gran liked the boy who was frequently in and out of the house, and liked that Midoriya had a friend, even more. Companionship made all of the hard work Izuku was being put through a lot more bearable.

Tsukauchi dropped in from time to time to talk to Gran, and to check up on Izuku, and eventually he became a regular (if not frequent) visitor. Crime levels had risen since All Might’s passing, and he was often too busy to be social, but he was always welcome, nonetheless. On one such visit, Izuku and Shinsou had gone out to the park to hang out and practice a flip Izuku was trying to teach his friend. Tsukauchi had just settled at the kitchen table with Gran for a cup of coffee, when Shinsou burst into the house, shouting.

“Somebody help! Izuku got hurt!”

Both men locked eyes before they shot to their feet and followed the boy down the street to the park on the corner lot, to find Izuku lying on the ground, tears streaming from his eyes. He was clutching his right arm, which was definitely not supposed to bend that way. Tsukauchi was instantly on the phone, calling for an ambulance, and Gran knelt by Izuku’s side and put a hand on his uninjured shoulder.

“It hurts!” Izuku gritted out between clenched teeth. He couldn’t comprehend why his arm was suddenly burning with stabbing pains shooting from shoulder to fingertips. Tears streamed as the pain throbbed in time with his rapidly beating heart.

“What happened?” Gran asked Shinsou.

“We were just messing around, doing flips and stuff, and he started doing the red thing, where he starts to light up,” Shinsou said, describing the sight of One For All trying to assert itself. “Then, I don’t know! He was just standing there, getting ready to show me something, and there was this sound like, ’_crunch_’ and he fell down and started screaming and told me to go get help!”

The poor kid was panting for breath after his sprint to the Midoriya’s place and back, and looked terrified. Tsukauchi put a hand on his head and said, “You did the right thing. An ambulance is on the way.”

Within minutes, Izuku was loaded into the back of the emergency vehicle with Gran riding along. Tsukauchi walked with the other boy back to the house to get his car, then drove Shinsou home, telling him they would let him know how Izuku was as soon as they found out. Gran didn’t like cell phones, so Naomasa also called Inko at work and let her know what was going on, and went to collect her to take her to the hospital.

“He’s in surgery,” Gran said when they finally arrived at the emergency department. “His elbow shattered, and they have to put it back together.”

Tsukauchi had to leave to go back to work, so Inko and Gran sat and waited for news. When the doctor approached them several hours later, he told them that Izuku’s arm was so severely damaged, that they had to put it back together with titanium plates and screws. There would be an extended healing process, and even longer physical therapy sessions. Because of Izuku’s age and the fact that he wasn’t nearly done growing, the necessity for more surgeries was possible in the future.

“I swear, if I didn’t already have white hair, it’d be white by now,” Gran said quietly, hopping to his feet. “I’ve got some calls to make.”

Inko was a bundle of nerves and tears, and left him to make his calls while she went to the recovery room to see her son. He was pale, and looked tiny in the bed, surrounded by machines, with tubes in his arms and a splint on his arm that was covered in ice packs. His freckles looked especially dark in contrast to the whiteness of the sheets and his pale skin. She let out a sob of relief to find him relatively whole before getting a hold of her emotions and wrestling them down.

“He should be waking up any minute, now,” a nurse told her when she saw Inko standing at the foot of the bed. Their matching green hair was only the beginning of the family resemblance between this woman and the boy recovering. “Once he’s awake, we’ll be moving him to a room.”

Inko thanked her and watched her son as he groaned a little, squinting before blinking his eyes open and looking around. The nurse checked the display on the machine that was monitoring Izuku’s heartbeat, and leaned over the bed. “That’s it. Open your eyes, Izuku-kun. Your mother’s here,” she said in a cheerfully coaxing voice.

“Mom?” he croaked, blinking blearily.

“I’m here, baby. I’m here.” Inko rushed forward so she was directly in his line of sight.

“He probably won’t remember any of this,” the nurse warned her. “He’ll be pretty out of it from the anesthesia and pain medication for a couple of hours. He’ll mostly sleep, and that’s completely normal.”

Inko nodded, and kept talking to her son, assuring him that he was okay, and that he should just relax and rest. Izuku smiled when he saw her, and then frowned when he couldn’t move his arm to wave at her like he intended to do. His voice had a dreamy quality to it as he giggled a bit and kept saying, “I don’t like this. This isn’t fun.”

“Those must be some good drugs,” Gran said as he approached them. “How’s he doing?”

“He’s acting drunk,” Inko chuckled with a sniff. “The nurse said it’s normal, and he’ll probably sleep for a while.”

He nodded and regarded the kid seriously. “This...shouldn’t have happened. I’m sorry I didn’t see anything like this coming, or I would have been more vigilant.”

“None of us did,” Inko said, dismissing his apology, “and now he’s not going to be able to keep up is training, to keep it from happening again.”

“Don’t bet on it,” Gran said defiantly. “Do you know who Recovery Girl is?”

“It sounds vaguely familiar, but I’m not sure why,” Inko said, having a vague image in her mind of a pretty, petite woman in a hero costume from long ago.

“Well, she was popular in my time, so it’s not surprising. Most people have forgotten us by now, since there wasn’t all that much technology to spread news all over the place, then. She has a healing quirk; a strong one. She works as the school nurse at Yuuei now, though she makes hospital rounds from time to time. I gave Principal Nezu a call, and he’s sending her over to treat Izuku tomorrow morning.”

“She couldn’t come sooner?” Inko asked, hating to sound ungrateful, but hating even more seeing her son suffering.

“She could,” Gran said, “but the way her quirk works uses the body’s own energy to speed up natural healing. Right now, izuku’s worn down from the surgery, and pain takes a lot out of a person, too. She’ll come after he’s had a good night’s sleep, do her thing, and he’ll probably sleep again right away. Should speed up his recovery significantly.”

“That’s...that’s wonderful. I don’t know what to say, other than thank you.”

“Don’t need thanks,” he said gruffly, “but if you wanted, you could buy me another box of taiyaki next time you go shoppin’.”

“You need to eat more than sweets,” she scolded lightly. She didn’t know why she argued with him, when she knew full well that he would just go out and buy his own or talk Tsukauchi-san into bringing them. “Maybe just this once”

He smiled at that, and then they were given the room number that Izuku would be taken to, so they could meet him up there. They took the hint and cleared out of the recovery area, and went to get visitor badges and locate the rooms at the information desk. By the time they arrived, Izuku was being rolled in and was fast asleep. There were three other beds in the large room, but only one of the other beds were occupied. The curtains were drawn around the other patient, so Inko settled into a chair quietly while the staff got all of the machinery situated and running properly. Gran paced around the room a little, and seemed agitated, but when Inko told him he could go home and rest, he shook his head.

“Not yet. I’m expectin’ a visitor,” he answered cryptically.

“A visitor?” Inko’s eyebrows shot up.

“Toshi’s sidekick. I asked him to come in, so I could talk to him. Once he gets here, I’ll get out of the way and go take care of the house and feed the cat.”

“You know you’re not in the way, Gran,” Inko said fondly. She had grown to truly like the man, once she had figured out his tsundere attitude. “You’re welcome to stay, if you want.”

“Nah. I hate hospitals,” he said, waving away her invitation. “It’s why I refuse to get sick.”

She laughed quietly at that, then turned when there was the sound of a man clearing his throat. There was a tall, thin man standing in the doorway, looking slightly uncomfortable. His features were sharp behind triangular glasses, giving him an almost angry look, but his face wore a relaxed expression. He looked basically like a salary man, in a light gray suit and red tie, and smooth hair in a side part.

“Please excuse the intrusion,” he said politely as he walked toward Izuku’s bed. “Gran.”

“Sir Nighteye, meet Midoriya Inko,” Gran said without preamble, then gestured to the boy on the bed. “That’s her son, Izuku.”

“Midoriya-san,” Sir Nighteye nodded to her. “I’m aware of the situation, and I felt compelled to come, given my relationship with All Might. I’m very sorry you and your son are being put through this. Did Gran tell you anything about why I’m here?”

“I’m afraid not,” Inko said, glancing at Gran. “Only that he needed to speak to you.”

“I have a very specialized quirk that I used to use as All Might’s sidekick to keep him on track. I’m only sorry that he never let me use it on him,” Sir Nighteye explained, looking troubled for a moment. “I can touch a person and look into their eyes, and see into their future with 100% accuracy. I can only do so once a day, and only for one hour, so it’s important to pick and choose the moments I pay attention to. It’s kind of like fast forwarding through a film reel. I tend not to use it as much as one would expect, preferring to use logic and strategy to navigate life.”

Inko’s eyes had widened when she heard this. Seeing the future could be a very dangerous, and possibly addicting thing.

“You want to look into Izuku’s future?” she asked cautiously.

“Gran asked me to, with your permission. I believe he is most concerned with the near future,” he affirmed. “A precautionary measure, to make sure there are no more injuries like this approaching. As I said, my future sight is completely accurate, so it can only help you prepare for what’s coming,not prevent it. It can be useful, if used correctly.”

“I don’t know if I believe in all this not being able to change destiny stuff, but he’s never been wrong before,” Gran said quietly. “I think we need to be prepared, if his damn bones are going to explode again.”

Inko looked uncertain, and Sir Nighteye couldn’t blame her. It was a daunting thing to be offered a glimpse of the future. “It is completely up to you to decide. As I said, I must make eye contact with the target of my vision, and the boy looks like he’ll be asleep for quite a while. Why don’t you think about it overnight, and if you’re ammedable to the idea, I can return tomorrow.”

Inko agreed, and she watched as both men exited the room. She had a lot to think about, and she wasn’t sure what to do. She trusted Gran, but this was so much bigger than anything she ever thought she’d have to deal with. It was at times like this that she specially missed Hisashi and his support. When he’d been working abroad, he’d caught pneumonia, and had passed away unexpectedly. Her life had never been the same since. Izuku didn’t really remember him, having only been two at the time, though she had tried to keep his memory alive with pictures and stories. He’d been gone now for longer than they’d been together, and that was such a strange feeling. What would he have thought of all this? What would he have advised her to do? It was too long ago for her to know.

After a (frankly terrible) night’s sleep, Inko arrived at the hospital just after visiting hours began. As she approached the room, she could hear more noise than the day before. There was definitely a television on somewhere nearby, and voices talking animatedly, as well. Inside the room, she found that the room’s other patient, an older boy who looked about fifteen or so, was awake and watching a sports program. He looked up when she entered, then turned back to his show when he didn’t recognize her. Diagonally across the room, Izuku was sitting up with a breakfast tray in front of him, and Shinsou Hitoshi perched on the chair beside him. They were both talking a mile a minute, and Izuku looked clear eyed and alert.

“Mom!” Izuku said with a smile, “Shinsou-kun came to visit before school!”

“I see that,” Inko said warmly, greeting the other boy with a smile. “That was very nice of him. How are you feeling?”

“I want to go home,” Izuku said immediately. “The nurse said I probably have to stay here for a few _days_. It’ll be so boring!”

“I can bring you your homework,” Shinsou offered. “That’s no boring at all.”

“Ugh,” Izuku groaned. “I feel okay. Did you bring me something else to wear? This gown thing is embarrassing.”

“I brought you some clothes, and your handheld console” Inko nodded. “You’re also going to have a visitor or two today. Then you’re going to be sleeping.”

“I slept all afternoon yesterday, all the way to this morning!” he complained with all the drama of a ten year old who was uncomfortable. “I don’t need any more sleep!”

“I gotta go, if I’m gonna be on time for school,” Shinsou told him, standing up and slinging his backpack over his shoulder. “I’ll try to come back later, but don’t worry if I don’t show up. I might need to babysit at home.”

He bumped fists with Izuku's good hand, and after he left, Inko sat down and handed over the bag she had packed. She brought him his pajamas, a change of clothes and a selection of games for the console she’d mentioned. He seemed pleased as he set it aside and took a bite of his breakfast. While he ate, she explained about Recovery Girl, and Izuku’s eyes got wide.

“She’s coming here? For me?” he asked excitedly. “She was super famous about...fifty years ago, I think? She saved a ton of people after that big earthquake back then. The one that collapsed Taisho Tower!”

Izuku had an extensive internal bank of hero trivia and knowledge, and could go on for hours if not interrupted. He was still chattering about it when Gran came in, followed by Sir Nighteye, who Inko had agreed to let have a ‘look’ at her son’s near future. For once, the boy didn’t have much information, but that could be attributed to the man being a sidekick, and not a full pro hero.

Wide eyed, he listened as Sir Nighteye explained what he was going to be doing. Sir Nighteye, not knowing Izuku past what he had been told, made the mistake of asking if he had any questions. Both Gran and Inko had groaned when Izuku started rapid firing more questions than the man could answer without giving him time to even try. The last question he got to ask was, “Can you look to see if I’m going to be able to be a hero?”

“No!” Inko had finally cut in, interrupting him. “Izuku, he’s here to look at your _near_ future. Even if he sees anything that far ahead, I don’t want him telling us. We’re going to live in the here and now, and work hard to get where we want to go.”

Izuku looked disappointed, but nodded meekly.

“Your mother is very wise,” Sir Nighteye said solemnly. “Knowing too much about the destination can sometimes take the adventure out of the journey. We are having a look at this time, only as a cautionary measure to help your mother and Gran be prepared for any...mishaps that may occur.”

Izuku nodded again, still slightly disappointed, but didn’t argue. He sat still and obediently looked into Sir Nighteye’s curiously bright eyes as the man touched his cheek lightly with his long, cool fingers. They stayed like that for a few minutes, and then Sir dropped his hand and nodded.

“I’m pleased to say that I didn’t see any more trips to the hospital in the near future, However, I fear that you’ll soon be dealing with the press, in some way. I saw Izuku-kun speaking to a reporter sometime within the next few weeks. I couldn’t say what it was about,” He reported calmly. “You may want to prepare yourselves.”

Gran patted Sir on the back. “Thank you. That’s a big worry off my mind.”

“Yes! Thank you very much!” Inko agreed. “I hope I never have to visit him in the hospital again, but it’s nice to know that if I do, it won’t be soon.”

Sir Nighteye nodded in acknowledgement.

"Did," Izuku said quietly, "Did they tell you that--that All Might said to say--" Izuku stuttered out, afraid to hurt Sir Nighteye by mentioning the hero he'd worked for.

"They did," Sir Nighteye assured him, not making him finish. "I wanted to thank you for that, and for staying there with him in his final moments. It means a lot to me to know he wasn't totally alone."

Izuku nodded, though tears had gathered at the corners of his eyes.

Sir Nighteye wished them well, and left with Gran. Izuku looked glad to know he wasn’t headed to surgery again any time soon, and relaxed against his pillows. Just a few minutes later, Recovery Girl came into the room, a tiny woman with her gray hair in a tight, netted bun, seemingly held up by a syringe, of all things. She waited until the doctor was summoned (who was amazed to see her there for what he considered a minor case) and then treated Izuku with a kiss on his forehead that had him slipping into sleep, even as he fought to stay awake to pepper her with questions. Once asleep, the doctor unwrapped the wound to check on the progress the healing had made, and declared that Izuku could likely go home by dinnertime, if he was awake. From there, he could be brought to Yueei for further treatments in a day or two, but would still have to see a physical therapist to make sure the muscles and tendons were properly stretched, and full mobility available.  


Inko had tears in her eyes as she bid the woman goodbye, promising to bring Izuku to her in the coming days for treatment.

It was a miracle when Izuku, just two days after surgery on his arm, was able to return to school with just a soft cast and a sling. The other kids even seemed interested in him for a change, now that he had a quirk and a story to tell, if he wanted to. However, the only person he was interested in having any meaningful conversation with was the only one who would have spoken to him before all of that.

“Shinsou-kin!” he smiled broadly as he came into class with only a minute to spare before the bell.

“Yes! You’re back! This place has been so boring without you,” Shinsou celebrated.

“Yeah, yeah, but! Guess what!” Izuku was clearly bursting to tell him something. “Guess, guess, guesssss!”

“Your mom and Gran Torino are getting married.”

“_EW_! Why? Why would you _ever_ guess that? Oh my God, I need brain bleach right now!” Izuku flailed dramatically. “No! Just. No.”

Shinsou laughed at this, but had to wait to find out what Izuku was so excited about, because the teacher arrived just as the bell rang, signaling the start of the school day. Right after roll call, a very sloppily written note landed on Shinsou’s desk.

_’I get to go to Yueei tomorrow after school so Recovery Girl can do another healing thing on my arm. Mom says you can come too, if your parents say it’s okay.’_

“**SERIOUSLY**?” he shouted after reading it.

Izuku snorted out a laugh when the teacher scolded Shinsou for his outburst, but nodded with a grin when they made eye contact.

That was how the two starry-eyed boys ended up walking with Gran Torino up the steps to Yueei’s main building the next afternoon. It wasn’t a far walk to the Health Office, so the boys didn’t get much of a tour, but it was like a dream come true, nonetheless. When they arrived, Recovery Girl was tending to a student, and there was another person(?) in the room, having a cup of tea at the desk. Izuku tried not to be rude, but it was hard not to stare at the diminutive...person? Creature? Sitting calmly at the desk, dressed in dark blue pants and a matching double-breasted vest, white long sleeved shirt and red tie. What made him unusual, besides his size, which was only about 80 or 90 cm tall, was that he didn’t look human, but didn’t look like any one animal, either. He looked like an amalgamation of a mouse, a cat and a dog, with various features of each. He also sported a rather large scar over one of his eyes. Was he Recovery Girl’s...pet?

“Ah!” the creature-man said, hopping to his feet when the three walked into the office. “Gran Torino! Who have you brought with you today?”

Izuku heard Shinsou gasp when the person(?) spoke, surprised that it (he?) could.

Gran sighed. “As if you don’t know everything that happens around here.”

“Indulge me.”

“Fine, fine. Principal Nezu, this is Midoriya Izuku, and his friend Shinsou Hitoshi. Midoriya is here for an appointment with Shuzenji-san,” Gran told him with exaggerated politeness. “Shinsou came along for moral support and because he’s hoping to come here as a student, some day.”

“A student, you say?” Nezu said, sounding genuinely curious. “Not an easy task! Do you think you’ll be up to it?”

Before Shinsou could answer for himself, Izuku piped up confidently. “He will! We both will! He has a super useful quirk for hero work, and I’m gonna be super strong!”

Shinsou blushed a little and looked at his shoes, but nodded, “Yes sir, we’re already working hard.”

“I’m glad to hear that! I look forward to seeing what you make of yourselves.” Nezu said kindly.

It was easy to forget that Nezu had a strange appearance once you began talking to him. He exuded an air of authority and confidence that no one would dare question. Izuku made a mental note to look on the internet for information about him when he got home. The girl being treated scurried out of the Health Office with a handful of gummy bears in her fist as Nezu hopped to stand on the stool she’d just been sitting on.

“Midoriya, I’ve been hearing good things about your progress in your activities. Jumpstart and Backlash have both said you’re enthusiastic and intelligent,” Nezu praised.

“Y-y-you know about that?” Izuku couldn’t keep the amazement out of his voice.

Shinsou looked like Izuku had suddenly turned into a celebrity right in front of his eyes, equally amazed that the principal of the famous Yuuei, All Might’s alma mater, new anything about Izuku.

“Of course! I was the one who picked them out for you. Gran asked me find you appropriate instructors that could help you build your strength quickly, so naturally I’ve kept tabs on your progress.”

“Naturally,” Gran commented dryly. Nezu ignored him.

“I’m glad we had this opportunity to meet, Izuku-kun!” Nezu said cheerfully, “And you, Hitoshi-kun! I hope I’ll be seeing you again at the entrance exams in a few years!”

Both of them hastily bowed at a ninety degree angle and said, “Yes, sir! Thank you, sir!” Much to the other two adults’ amusement.

Recovery Girl was satisfied with the state of Izuku’s arm, and the kiss she gave him made him yawn, but didn’t put him to sleep. She checked his arm’s range of motion, stretched it a bit, and let them go with an admonition to keep up with the exercises the physical therapist showed him. She told him he could keep the sling off, but to put it back on if his arm started to get sore at all.  


The scar on his arm was already faded, a slightly puckered line with spots up and down each side where the staples had been. Shinsou said it looked like he had a pink centipede crawling up his arm.

On their way out of the school, Shinsou stopped dead in his tracks and stared down the corridor. Izuku looked to see what had caught his friend’s attention and lets out a loud, “Waaaaah! It’s _Ectoplasm_! He’s one of the strongest on the faculty here! He makes clones of himself and overwhelms his opponents with superior numbers, but he’s also really smart! He’s a close range fighter, and even though both his legs are prosthetic, he’s still super fast!”

Shinsou was nodding wildly in agreement as the man in question disappeared around a corner at the end of the hall, obviously star-struck. “So cool!"

“Yeah, yeah, this place is crawling with heroes,” Gran said dismissively. “More importantly, I heard that there's a shop around here that mixes taiyaki into their mochi ice cream. Get going, I’m not missing out on a chance to get some!”

Shinsou laughed at the old man’s enthusiasm, and Izuku just shook his head. “Gran, mom will freak out if she…”

“She’s not gonna find out, cause no one’s gonna tell her,” Gran said in a mock-threatening tone. “That woman checks to see how many taiyaki I eat a day, like she’s my warden, or something!”

As they walked toward the front gates of the school, they continued to argue about how many sweets were okay to eat in a single day. In the end, they still got the ice cream (which was very tasty), and Inko never found out about it.


	4. Celebrity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Sir Nighteye predicted, Izuku has a run-in with a reporter, just not in the way anyone expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies to anyone who got an update notice (or two) about this fic, and found nothing. I accidentally uploaded the last two chapters of my other fic, _Long Distance_ to the wrong file. I was so excited to finally have that one finished, that I didn't check which one I was updating until it was too late. As recompense, here is the fourth chapter to THIS fic, way earlier than I planned! Hope you like it!

The evening of Izuku’s first visit to Yuuei to see Recovery Girl, Shinsou had been invited to have dinner with the Midoriyas and Gran. This was not so unusual, but on this particular night, he felt that everyone was being a bit more stiff than usual in their speech and movements. Finally, his nerves and curiosity had him leaning toward Izuku at the table and asking quietly, “Is everyone okay? There’s kind of a weird atmosphere.”

Izuku’s eyes shot to his mom, who nodded, then to Gran who said, “Go ahead, kid. Tell him.”

Shinsou looked around at each of them in turn, wondering if he was in some kind of trouble. Izuku finally took a drink from his cup before nodding and turning to his friend.

“I sort of have something to tell you. A secret that not many people know, about why I switched schools.”

“You said it was because you were bullied for not having a quirk,” Shinsou recalled.

“That was part of it...a big part, really, but not _all_ of it.” Izuku confessed. “The thing that made it really....necessary to move schools was because of something that happened while I was on a field trip. See...I was running away from bullies, and went into any alley to hide, and that’s where I...where I…” He swallowed hard, and shook his head, having trouble continuing. His mother gave him a moment, but when it seemed like he couldn’t finish, she took up the tale.

“Izuku stumbled upon All Might, right after he’d been in his last battle,” she said quietly. “He was there when he died. The only one. It’s been very...hard. Traumatic. His teachers at his old school found out, but have been keeping it a secret for now. But ...we have reason to believe that the press might have learned he was there that day, and they could come and try to interview him or get information from him.”

Izuku nodded, managing not to let the tears he felt prickling behind his eyes come out. “It was really awful, and I don’t like to talk about it, but if reporters show up...we thought you should know. As my best friend, they might try to bother you too, to see if I told you anything.”

“Oh my God.” Shinsou whispered with wide eyes. “That must have been terrifying. I’m so sorry.”

He couldn't really think of anything else to say. “I’m glad you told me. It’s gotta be hard to keep something like that to yourself. I swear I won’t tell anyone else, ever. Not even my mom or dad! If we see any reporters, we can just play dumb or run away.”

Izuku nodded, and Inko thanked him for his understanding.

Life gradually returned to normal for the Midoriya family over the next week. Izuku was cleared for normal activity and resumed his training and extra classes. Shinsou still showed up at Dagobah beach after school on they days they worked out there, and Gran continued to sneak sweets when he thought Inko wasn’t paying attention.

On a warm Saturday afternoon, however, things changed. 

Dagobah beach still looked terrible, but people seemed to have quit dumping their stuff in the sand, and instead were just tossing it in the dumpster that the boys were supposed to be filling. Gran grumbled about having to have it emptied so often, but was at least glad they weren’t making more mess. It was good for the boys to be able to see the progress they were making. Izuku had mapped out the area into a grid of sorts, and each boy took a five meter square to work on each time they visited. It was a competition of sorts, to see who could clear their square first, with good-natured ribbing when one square was far more cluttered than the other. Gran had begun keeping a small cooler full of drinks and snacks for them, and occasionally helped with anything was too awkward for the boys to handle.

In one such instance, the three of them had just maneuvered what looked like a giant fan blade or airplane propeller over to lean against the dumpster, when a woman’s voice called, “Excuse me! May I have a word with you?”

All three looked over at the source of the voice and froze. The woman was holding a cordless microphone in her hand. She was prettily made up, wearing a sunny coral colored suit. Behind her was a man shouldering a news camera, with their van parked a little ways away at the far end of the lot. Her expression was open and friendly, and there wasn’t any real urgency in her posture, so Izuku marginally relaxed. If they needed to outrun her, they could easily do so.

Gran dusted off his hands casually, and turned to face the woman with an inquiring look. “How can I help you?”

“Hello! My name is Hazada Mariko, and I’m with _Good News Japan_. We got a call from one of our viewers that told us that a couple of kids had been cleaning up the beach, here. I’d like to do a little interview with you all about it. Kind of a ‘feel good’ piece highlighting some of the uplifting stories around the city, you know? With the recent spike in crime, people like seeing the good in the world.”

Gran relaxed at hearing this, and Izuku and Shinsou looked at each other in bewilderment.

“Sure. I don’t see why not,” Gran said easily. You’ll have to get permission from their parents before you put ‘em on TV, but other than that, I don’t see the harm. They’re doing good work here.”

The woman smiled brightly and discussed angles and lighting with her cameraman for a moment, took down their names and ages, then got into position. She stood in a spot that let the cameras catch the heaps of garbage in the background, while still showing the clear spot the boys had managed to make over the past weeks. She motioned for the boys to come stand by her, and smiled brightly for the camera. She began her piece by talking about how the beach used to be a popular spot for locals to spend time, and how that had changed over time. She spoke about how people had stopped coming when people started using it for a dumping ground, and that it had driven away the small businesses that had catered to beach goers. Izuku didn’t know there used to be businesses around the area; it was pretty run down looking right now. Finally, after her brief backstory of the area, she turned to the boys.

“...However, these two boys are trying to fix that. With me today are ten year olds Shinsou Hitoshi and Midoriya Izuku, both students at Jakku Elementary. They have been coming to Dagobah beach three times a week to serve the community by clearing out the trash doing what they can to make the area a nicer place to visit! Hitoshi-kun, what do you hope will happen when people see this?”

She held the microphone in front of Shinsou, who shrugged and said, “I hope people will start properly throwing their trash away. This stuff is bad for the ocean and the birds and stuff. No one wants to come to a beach with old refrigerators and futons and stuff laying around.”

“You’re absolutely right! Izuku-kun, what made you boys decide to start this project?”

“Well, at first I wasn’t thinking about helping anyone but myself. I wanted to get stronger, so a family friend brought me here and put me to work, so I could build some muscle, 'cause Shinsou and I want to be heroes, so we gotta start, now!”

“I’d say you’re off to a good start!” Hazada-san said admiringly. 

Izuku nodded and continued when she seemed to want him to talk some more. “Once we started seeing progress, and the sand was getting clearer, we could really tell that this could be a nice place if people just did their part It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.”

She asked them a few more questions, then asked them to go back to their work, so they could film a bit of that. Once they were finished filming, she promised to contact both Midoriya Inko and Shinsou’s parents, and told them to watch for themselves on the morning show the next day. When she was gone, Gran Torino slapped Izuku’s shoulder with pride.

“Thank God, that must have been what the bit about the press what about. I’ll have to call Nighteye,” he said quietly to Izuku, while Shinsou was making a trip to the dumpster. “Maybe we don’t have to worry about them finding out about the rest, after all.”  
The next morning, Izuku set the DVR to record _Good News Japan!_ before leaving for school, so he could watch and see how the interview had turned out after editing. He was in for a surprise, however, when their homeroom teacher came into the room absolutely beaming at the class, and hooking up her laptop computer to a projector set on a table at the front of the room.__

_ _“Everyone take your seats! I have a special surprise for you all! Our principal got a call from a news program yesterday evening to say that two of our students were going to be featured on the show!”_ _

_ _Everyone was looking around at each other in puzzlement and chattering. Why didn’t anyone know about this? Being on TV seemed like the type of gossip that would have traveled around the school like wildfire. Maybe it was students in sixth year? They were in a different wing of the building._ _

_ _“We were told that the segment with our students would begin at 8:45, so we only have a couple of minutes to get this set up so we can all watch! Nobody noticed Shinsou’s smirk at Izuku, who was doing his best to hide behind his math book, because he’d flushed beet red._ _

_ _When Hazada Mariko appeared on the screen, the class settled down to watch. The backstory of the beach began, with a photograph they’d found of what the beach had looked like in its heyday. Izuku was interested to see there was a dock with a gazebo at the end, and food stalls that sold things like shaved ice and crepes nearby. It had the potential to be a pretty place again, if they kept up the good work...for the next five years. Finally, the screen shot back to the reporter, with Shinsou and Midoriya standing beside her. Every head in the room swung around to stare at them as if they’d never seen them before. Both boys on the screen were dirty and sweaty, standing beside the immaculate woman, but it just made them look like they’d been working really hard (which they had)._ _

_ _ Hitoshi grinned and waved at the kids staring at them as if to say, ’_how do you like me now, buttheads?_’ In opposition to his friend’s cockiness, Izuku was doing his best to disappear, hiding behind his own arms. When the interview commenced, their classmates turned back to the screen to watch. At the conclusion, the teacher switched it off and smiled. _ _

_ _“Well, done HItoshi-kun, Izuku-kun! You’ve made us all proud. I hope you’ll continue in your efforts, and that others will learn from your example.”_ _

_ _After that, they day pretty much went back to normal, but some of the kids were a little nicer. At recess, a girl even approached and apologized for saying mean things about Shinsou, before. It didn’t erase years of excluding him, but it was a start, at least. In PE class, some of the boys even wanted to talk to them about their desire to be heroes, one day. Once Izuku pointed out how useful a brainwashing quirk could be when fighting crime, the boys looked more thoughtful. They might not ever be popular at school, but now that the kids knew that they were actually nice, and trying to do good things, their situation improved, over time._ _

_ _About a week after the news piece aired, Izuku and Shinsou were hard at work moving a mildewed couch out of the sand (after chasing three feral cats out from inside of it). Gran had been sitting in his usual chair, but had suddenly jumped up and sped off...using his quirk. A moment later, there was shouting and cursing as the old man reappeared, dragging an angry blonde boy, bent over at the waist, by the ear._ _

_ _“Let go of me, damn old man! That’s my fuckin’ ear! OW!” Bakugou Katsuki did not seem to have changed much over the past months._ _

_ _Izuku dropped his end of the couch and stared open mouthed at the sight of Gran smacking the bombastic bully on top of his head. “Watch yer mouth, kid. Didn’t anyone tell you to respect yer elders?”_ _

_ _“What the heck?” Shinsou asked, bewildered._ _

_ _“Kacchan?” Izuku asked no one in particular._ _

_ _“You know him?” Shinsou put down his end of the couch and wiped the sweat from his forehead._ _

_ _“Caught this brat creepin’ around behind the dumpster,” Gran said. “Didn’t like the look of him.”_ _

_ _Bakugou continued to swat at the man’s hand until he was let go. His ear was bright red, and his cheeks weren’t far behind. The scowl on his face only deepened when he heard Izuku talk._ _

_ _“Kacchan, what are you doing here?”_ _

_ _“Don’t call me that, asshole.” he said angrily, flinching when Gran flicked his arm with two bony fingers._ _

_ _“Fine, then,” Izuku said, rolling his eyes. “Bakugou, what are you doing here?”_ _

_ _“Wait...Bakugou?” Gran said, putting the pieces together. “Is this the kid that was bullying you, before?”_ _

_ _“One of them,” Izuku said with annoyance. He was proud to say that he didn’t feel fear at the sight of his once-childhood-friend. _ _

_ _“I didn’t bully anybody!” Katsuki growled with a raised voice. “Deku was always starting crap with me, following me around.”_ _

_ _“By _starting crap_, he means trying to be his friend,” Izuku told Hitoshi, who was watching the scene with a new interest upon hearing who the boy was._ _

_ _“Whatever,” Katsuku growled petulantly, crossing his arms across his chest._ _

_ _“That doesn’t explain why you’re creepin’ around here,” Gran said, fists on his hips._ _

_ _“I can walk around the beach if I want,” Bakugou said defiantly. “I ain’t doing anything wrong, old man.”_ _

_ _Gran raised an eyebrow at him, but said nothing, just staring at him until the kid cracked. _ _

_ _“Fine. I saw what he was doing on the news, okay? Heard him say he wanted to be a _hero_. As if! He doesn’t even have a quirk!”_ _

_ _“So, you came all the way here to what? Stop him?” Hitoshi asked, also crossing his arms across his chest. “He _does_ have a quirk, for your information. It just didn’t show up till recently ‘cause it’s so strong his body couldn’t handle it till he got stronger!”_ _

_ _“That’s enough, Hitoshi-kun,” Gran said, holding up his hand. “We don’t owe him any explanation; it’s none of his business.”_ _

_ _“Bullshit. People don’t just get quirks at ten years old!” Bakugou shouted, furious beyond what the situation called for. “Go ahead and try to get stronger slinging trash around. You’re_ nobody_, and you’re always going to_ be_ nobody.”_ _

_ _“Are you trying to make him believe that, or yourself, brat? Someone who beats down people weaker than them will eventually find someone bigger who likes to do the same.” Gran stood his ground and stared at the blonde with steel in his eyes. “Now go on home before I give you one of the ass-whoopin’s your mother forgot.” _ _

_ _Hitoshi snorted out a laugh at that, and Izuku was so amazed, that he joined in. He wasn’t used to anyone but his mother doing anything to stop the bullies before now, and it felt...liberating._ _

_ _“I left to get away from you Ka-er-Bakugou. Let’s just leave it at that. Good-bye.”_ _

_ _Izuku turned his back on Katsuki and bent to pick up his end of the couch again, Shinsou taking the hint and following suit. No one even watched as the boy stormed away with angry tears in his eyes._ _

_ _

_ _Over the next year, Principal Nezu changed Izuku’s lessons from time to time, to give him a more well-rounded education in physical strength, movement and strategy. He stayed with martial arts, though elements of other disciplines were introduced along the way. Gymnastics had given him a good sense of balance and spatial awareness, and a grace of movement most eleven year olds lacked, but as he progressed, he left those lessons behind to move on to sports like track and field, wrestling and boxing. He spent a couple of months on each discipline before being switched to others at Nezu’s whim, but always with a current or retired hero or sidekick. It took some time, but eventually he got used to meeting people who had only been really distant celebrities before. _ _

_ _Izuku’s counsellor suggested meditation to help him get in better touch with himself. She walked him through some of the familiar breathing exercises that he used when he got overwhelmed with emotion. This made it easier to grasp the basics of meditation and relax into his own mind. He particularly liked this practice, and tended to devote the last hour of the day on it, before sleeping._ _

_ _

_ _Beach days were reduced to twice a week, but both boys’ strength was growing noticeably. Gran had simply added Hitoshi to Izuku’s workout plan, and had them doing calisthenics and running together most days. If Hitoshi was wearing out or getting tired of the training, he never said so or complained. He wasn’t getting the benefits that Izuku was from extra classes, but he was still learning plenty, and improving every day. By the time the two of them started at Nabu Middle school, Izuku could lift a refrigerator off of the ground, and Hitoshi could easily complete one hundred sit ups followed by an equal number of push ups._ _

_ _On the first day of Middle School, Izuku was disappointed to find that he and Hitoshi were assigned to different rooms. During lunchtimes, they would sneak into each other ‘s classrooms to eat together. However, not having Hitoshi there in class with him was good, in some ways. Izuku was forced out of his comfort zone, and into more social interactions than he was used to. He’d had acquaintances from his extra classes, if there had been other students, but no real friends. The new class he’d been assigned to was full of friendly enough kids, who quickly took a liking to him. He was athletic and humble and always showed interest in others when they spoke about their quirks. He wasn’t the most popular kid in class, but he wasn’t a social outcast, which was strange._ _

_ _Hitoshi had a slightly harder time. He was assigned to a class with a couple of others from their middle school, who were quick to tell others that he wasn’t very friendly (because he’d only ever hung out with Izuku). The kids in his class thought his quirk was ‘creepy’ or ‘something a villain would have.’ He’d even gotten into a fight on the first week of school for refusing to use his quirk to get free stuff for a couple of older kids at the corner store. He’d won the fight easily (all of that training and learning from Izuku really paid off), but it had set a tone for how others thought of his quirk. Izuku got so mad in his behalf, that Hitoshi had instantly felt better. When he visited Izuku’s classrooms at lunchtime, he was treated normally, because his friend had already told the others about his awesome best friend, and how they did everything together._ _

_ _Second year of middle school was rough for different reasons. At thirteen years old, there were changes to their bodies that Izuku didn’t like; namely, Hitoshi growing significantly taller than him. In fact, a lot of boys were significantly taller than him, and even some of the girls. Midoriya was stocky and practically pure muscle, but on the short side. It didn’t help that some of the boys good naturedly started calling him _Chibizuku_, and using his shoulder as an armrest. Added to that the voice-cracking/breaking/changing thing, and Izuku was constantly blushing as his classmates commiserated and poked fun of him (in the nicest possible way)._ _

_ _Aside from the onset of puberty being kinder to Hitoshi, Izuku was doing well. So well, in fact, that Gran decided that it was time for Izuku to start to try to use One For All as part of his training. So far, his quirk had remained quiet for the most part, but instances of the red glow had been happening more often. Small spurts of unnatural speed would overtake him on his morning run, and he’d end up a hundred meters ahead of Hitoshi in an instant. He’s sprained his ankle at school playing basketball in PE, when he’d jumped to make a shot, and ended up three meters in the air before plummeting back to the court. When he’d accidentally ripped the front door of their house off its hinges while simply opening it, they’d decided it was time for Izuku to learn some better control._ _

_ _Dagobah beach was nearly cleared of rubbish by now, and starting to see a resurgence in visitors, though it still needed some work. Gran had taken Izuku down by the water, where they wouldn’t damage any property, and there would be a soft landing, if anything went wrong. _ _

_ _“Okay, kid,” Gran said seriously, “We’re going to start figuring out how you should use One For All. Toshi didn’t have this sort of problem, but he also wasn’t nine years old when he got it. We’re both in new territory, and we’re going to have to do this by trial and error.”_ _

_ _Izuku nodded eagerly. He would have to learn to use his quirk if he wanted to get into Yuuei in two years, and had been waiting for this day for a long time. “I’m ready!”_ _

_ _“First of all, I want you to look for your quirk. Close your eyes and imagine it there, think about the red glow and how it feels when it shows up. Call it.”_ _

_ _It took more than an hour for Izuku to find that spark within himself. He was tense and frustrated, and feeling like his wanted to just hit something to vent his anger with himself for failing to do this one small thing. A moment later, he could hear Gran say, “You’ve got it, kid. Pay attention to how that feels in your body. Describe it to me.”_ _

_ _Izuku paused and listened to his body. There was a not unpleasant buzz at the back of his mind, like a distant swarm of bees floating there. His limbs felt...tingly? He wasn’t sure it was the right word. “I feel like a guitar string that’s been strummed, kinda. Not a strong vibration, but almost like there’s a-a _note_ humming in the background that I didn’t know was there until your told me to listen to it.”_ _

_ _Beads of sweat were forming on his brow from his concentration and the strain of holding onto the feeling without stilling the vibrations pulsing through him with every heartbeat. _ _

_ _“Good. Now let it go,” Gran told him._ _

_ _It took Izuku a moment to figure out how. He finally pictured a light switched and just mentally turned it to the “off” position. He was surprised to find that he was breathing heavily and shaking ever so slightly. Gran handed him a bottle of water and a small towel to wipe his brow with._ _

_ _“Took you long enough,” he said gruffly. “Let’s see if you can get it faster this time. I want you to just practice find it, holding it to the count of ten, then letting it go.”_ _

_ _It only took Izuku a minute to succeed, now that he knew what he was searching for. He followed gran’s instructions and found it less taxing the second time._ _

_ _“Again,” Gran demanded every time Izuku finished a round of practice. _ _

_ _After he’d gotten a grasp of how to find it and turn it off with almost no hesitation, Gran let him have a short break. After a few minutes to get hydrated and cool down, Gran pulled an ordinary tennis ball from his pocket and tossed it to Izuku. _ _

_ _“I want you to hold his while your quirk is active and throw it as hard as you think you can manage, out over the water. Let’s see how far you can get it.”_ _

_ _Gran had two more balls in his jacket, but there wasn’t really a way to measure speed or distance at the moment. The important part was no hoe fast or far, just the fact that he could do it with the help of his quirk._ _

_ _Izuku took a pitching stance facing the water and called up One For All. He’d been closing his eyes before, but now he could see the red glowing lines criss-crossing around his arms as he raised it. He shifted his eyes to the horizon, pulled back his arm while lifting the opposite leg as he’d been taught when he learned baseball, and _threw_. There was a loud _CRACK!_ as the ball literally shot out of sight in an instant, and it took a full three seconds for it to register in Izuku’s mind that the sound might not have been the ball, but his arm. The pain that flooded into him when the red glow disappeared was a pretty good indication that something had gone wrong. Gran was at his side in an instant, swearing up a storm. Izuku looked down at his arm to see that one, it was bare - the sleeve of the hoodie he’s been wearing was torn completely away, and two, said arm was rapidly turning red and purple._ _

_ _“That...really hurts,” Izuku managed. The pain was ramping up to a stabbing sensation at this point, and he used his left arm to hold his right across his body and cradle it there. It wasn’t misshaped, but was starting to swell._ _

_ _“Yeah, I’ll bet it does,” Gran said, putting an arm around him to propel him back toward the parking lot. Luck was on their side, and a cab was just passing by as they reached the street. Gran let out a piercing whistle that had it stopping. He shoved Izuku into the back seat before climbing in himself and ordering the driver to take them to Yuuei. “Your mother’ll have my head for this.”_ _

_ _Izuku leaned his head back on the seat and grit his teeth. How unlucky did he have to be to hurt the same arm he’d had surgery on before? He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and offered it to Gran. “You wanna call her?”_ _

_ _“Nah. It’ll be easier to tell her about it, after we get you fixed up.” Gran said breezily. “It’ll be harder for her to yell at me if you’re standing right there looking fine.”_ _

_ _Despite the pain, Izuku managed a laugh at that. _ _

_ _ The next few weeks were both painful and difficult. Izuku was improving with One For All, but at what felt like a snail’s pace. He’d run face first into a brick wall and blackened both of his eyes and bloodied his nose in the process. Thankfully, Gran had used he quirk to beat Izuku to the wall and had slowed him down just in time to keep him from slamming his whole body against it. He scraped the skin off of both knees in one fall, and then as soon as that had healed, he grated the skin off of his left thigh, trying to skid to a stop on the asphalt when he overshot the sand and careened into the parking lot. Izuku’s teachers had called Inko several times in concern over his injuries, causing them both intense embarrassment._ _

_ _The beach that they had been using to practice at soon became too crowded during the day over school holidays. The boys had finished cleaning it up, even going so far as to shovel and sift the sand to remove any dangerous items hidden below the surface. Using the same grid as before, they’d dug about twenty five centimeters deep in each area, and had found a collection of broken bottles and other glass, two rings, a pair of glasses, a set of car keys, an old Endeavor action figure with most of the paint scraped off, some cool shells and sea glass, and most notably, a mannequin head, that had scared the hell out of Hitoshi when he’d turned it up. (Midoriya had saved it and wrapped it as a birthday gift for Hitoshi, where it scared the hell out of him again.)_ _

_ _Shinsou came and watched Izuku practice with his quirk for moral support, and had seen him gain many of his injuries. He was sympathetic, but couldn’t help much. After all, what could he do for a quirk that none of them knew how to use? All he could do was stay by his side as he recovered, help take his mind off of the discomfort with distractions, and keep a first aid kit nearby. _ _

_ _Summer break came right after Izuku’s thirteenth birthday. His mother had given him a smartphone, so he could call for help if he needed it, find directions, keep track of his schedule, and talk to Hitoshi. Gran disapproved of ‘young people and their electronic devices’ on principle, so Izuku tended to keep it hidden when training with him. Luckily, Hitoshi’s birthday had been just a couple of weeks before his, and he had also gotten a phone from his parents. Now they could mail each other and chat when they wanted without tying up the phone lines._ _

_ _Structured training was going well, and he had moved from basic karate to mixed martial arts. His new instructor was a woman with snake-like scales all over her body, that changed color depending on how the light hit it. She was almost as fast as Gran Torino when she moved, and he took a lot of falls at first, while he learned how to spot her tells and block or dodge her strikes. Shinsou had been allowed to observe one of his classes, and had been stunned by how hard Izuku worked to keep up with her teaching. He had known it before, but it had brought home to him how far apart their levels were when it came to training._ _

_ _After that, he’d asked his parents again for Karate lessons, and this time they had agreed. The local community center offered classes three times a week. It wasn’t taught by a former hero or sidekick, but he was happy to be able to start somewhere. Seeing Izuku training had lit a fire in him all over again, and he took his enthusiasm to class with him. He couldn’t let Izuku leave him behind, or how would they ever get into Yuuei and train to become heroes together? He only had a year and a half to improve enough to pass the entrance exam. He wasn’t worried about his grades or the written portion, but the practical was another matter._ _

_ _There were a ton crazy rumors on the internet about what the test entailed, from stopping a mock bank robbery (not easy, but doable if he could use his quirk) to fighting actual pro heroes one on one. Most of them were obviously not practical; there was no time to test the hundreds of kids who applied with one on one fights, and having them destroy giant robots would obviously be _super_ expensive and dangerous. It seemed that people enjoyed spreading a lot of misinformation, or maybe the school itself spread it to keep it a secret, so no one had an unfair advantage in knowing. At any rate, he started keeping a notebook like Izuku’s listing all of the possibilities he read about and planning out possible solutions._ _

_ _He even went to Gran Torino for pointers, to see if the old man could give him any hints, but all he would say was that Hitoshi was on the right track, and to be prepared for anything. _ _

_ _But no one could prepare for everything. They found that out the hard way, just a week later._ _


	5. The End of His World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izuku suffers from a loss that just might break him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so, SO sorry about this. If the death of a loved one triggers you, you may not want to read this chapter. I drew from my own experiences on this for the emotional and physical toll a death can take, and it was VERY hard to write. My poor dog kept coming to give me kisses and comfort me while I was typing this out. I swear to you that this has plot relevance, and I’m not just throwing this in for mere drama. That being said, I don’t know much about Japanese funeral rites, but I did my best. If you DO know about them, and see anything I got just completely wrong, please feel free to let me know, and I will do my best to edit it.
> 
> If you feel like you can’t read this chapter, see the end notes for a summary of what happened.

Izuku was sitting in class on an ordinary Wednesday afternoon, listening to his teacher drone on about the history of quirks before heroism was turned into a profession. How did the man manage to take such an interesting subject and turn it into an exercise in boredom? The entire class seemed to be in a stupor, so it was a surprise when the classroom door slid open to reveal the principal and the school counselor looking worried.

“Please forgive the interruption, we need Midoriya Izuku, please,” The principal met Izuku’s gaze and said to him directly, “Bring your things, you’re going to be leaving for the day.”

Intrigued, but not overly concerned, he grabbed his bag and stuffed his book into it. He walked to the front of the room with all eyes on him, but didn’t pay any attention; he was just glad to be getting out of class during the awful lesson. He waved to Hitoshi on his way out. Five minutes later, he would have given anything in the world to be sitting back in that classroom, having a normal day at school.

The principal walked him to his office and escorted him in. He was very surprised to see Gran Torino sitting in a chair in front of the desk, and even more stunned to see that he looked _terrible_. His hair was in disarray, his eyes were bloodshot, and ...was he trembling?

“Midoriya-kun,” the counselor began with a soft voice, her eyes full of pity, “I’m afraid we have some very bad news.”

Izuku was already shaking his head in denial. There was only one reason he could think of that would bring Gran Torino to the school, instead of… “My mother?” he didn’t even recognise his own voice, which sounded as if he were choking on acid.

“There was a villain attack. A villain with a gigantification quirk was being pursued by heroes, and your mother’s office building was destroyed in the battle. She didn’t survive.” The woman looked truly sorry, like she might cry just delivering the news.

Gran Torino stood up and cleared his throat, but it still sounded as though it was clogged. “I’ve got a car waiting out front. We can go to the hospital if you...you want to...to see her.”

Izuku didn’t remember falling to his knees, or the cries of alarm from the principal and counselor. He didn’t feel anything at all, until Gran’s hands fell heavily on his shoulders, and he simply said, “Breathe with me.” The old man took a deep breath, nodding at Izuku, trying to urge him to do the same, but it felt impossible, like he was drowning. His vision was blurred with what he distantly realized were tears, but he couldn’t draw breath, and things were going gray…

“_BREATHE, KID_!’” Gran ordered sternly, slapping Izuku hard on the back.

The reflex took hold then, and Izuku sucked in a lungful of air with a loud gasp. There were sighs of relief when he took another. Then another. Then the pain in his chest eased in one way, and intensified in another. His mother...was...gone? Impossible. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. He was having a nightmare, and he needed to wake up!

Gran got a hand under his elbow and hauled him to his feet. “Keep breathing, Izuku.” The shock of hearing the man call him anything other than ‘kid’ was enough to help him focus. Gran looked at him, as if assessing whether or not he could walk. “Let’s get you out of here.”

Izuku let himself be led out of the office, and out of the school to the waiting car without really comprehending any of it. There was a man he didn’t recognise, or didn’t really even register, behind the wheel and he kept his eyes forward as he pulled out onto the road. If Gran spoke to him during the ride to the hospital, Izuku didn’t hear it. He could only sit numbly, in a state of disbelief, recalling that morning, saying goodbye to his mother as he left for school. She’d told him to have a good day, and he’d said the same back to her. She had to go in earlier than usual to deal with some sort of paperwork mix-up and was already dressed and ready to leave. When was the last time he’d told her he loved her? When had he last said how much he appreciated everything she did for him? 

It seemed surreal to him that the world outside the car window was still...going. How could they people out there just be living their lives as if nothing significant had happened that changed _everything_? How was it possible that the whole world wasn’t standing still, reeling from the loss of someone so profound? She’d been his whole world since he was born, and now...

He was vaguely aware of being coaxed out of the car and lead into the hospital through a quiet entrance. There were doors lining the walls, and the voices of others could be heard behind them. Suddenly, Izuku went from feeling like his brain was full of cotton to being hyper-focused on everything around him. He could hear the squeak of his shoes on the floor (he was still wearing his school shoes), the faint buzzing of fluorescent lights above them, the sniffle of someone’s nose (maybe it was his?) The doors...he could hear people crying behind them. He could hear soft murmurs from some and angry tones from others. How many other people had lost loved ones in the attack? How many kids had been pulled out of school like he had? How many others were living their worst nightmare at this very moment? All of these doors had people behind them, suffering. One of these doors...one of these doors led to his mother. To her body. Like a glove, after the hand had been removed, it was just her shell, left behind as a reminder of her existence.

A nurse who had been leading them down the corridor (when had she gotten here?) stopped in front of a plain wooden door with a plaque beside it that simply listed the room number and a piece of tape with the name, ‘Midoriya Inko’ written on it in black marker. “Whenever you’re ready,” the nurse said gently. “Take as much time as you need.”

She walked back the way she had come, leaving Gran and Izuku standing outside of the door silently. Izuku realized his was trembling violently, and clenched his teeth and took a deep breath in an effort to calm himself a little. 

“You don’t have to go in there,” Gran said quietly. “No one will think less of you if you decide not to see her like this. If you do want to, you can go in by yourself, or I can come with you, or I can call anyone you’d like.”

It wasn’t like Gran to be so gentle and considerate, and it made the whole experience that much more surreal. He shook his head slowly, but he wasn’t sure what he was trying to convey by doing so. Izuku steadied himself and finally managed to speak. “I...I want to go in by myself,” he swallowed hard, “please.”

Gran may have nodded, but Izuku didn’t take his eyes off of the door. He heard the man take a couple of steps backward before saying, “I’ll wait right here. Take all the time you need.”

It was almost a full minute before Izuku could finally bring himself to extend a hand and place it on the door. Another full minute before he could slide it open and step inside. He slid the door shut behind him, and let his eyes travel to the bed. The ceiling light was dimmed, but there was a fixture above the bed to give a little more brightness. Izuku didn’t know what he had been expecting, but this wasn’t it. His mother was lying under crisp white sheets, pulled up to her neck, with a folded towel draped over her face. He could see her green hair above and below the towel, and it finally hit home that this was his mother. Midoriya Inko, just like it said on the tape by the door. She had just barely turned forty years old! It was too soon! How was it possible that the most loving, giving and gentle person that he knew in the whole world was lying here, an empty shell?

Izuku’s insides churned. He clapped a hand over his mouth and lunged for the small trash can in the corner, just in time to expel his breakfast into it. He sat on the floor on his knees and heaved until long after his stomach was empty. When the spasming in his gut finally subsided, he could remember his mother’s cool hands on his forehead, as she comforted him when he had been sick as a child. He recalled her gentle voice soothing him as she stroked his hair and rocked him. When he realized that would never be his reality again, the sobs came. He crawled over to the bed and hauled himself to his feet by the frame. He wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his jacket, then noticed a chair beside the bed. He dragged it over and sat, and began to talk quietly.

“I’m sorry about that, mom. I guess...I guess no one could be prepared for something like this. I’m not. I’m not ready for this. How could I be ready for this? This never should have happened. The heroes should have saved you; that’s what heroes are supposed to do!” His hands were fisted in the legs of his pants in anger. “I swear, when I become a hero…”

He had to stop then, as fresh sobs shook him, and he remembered her voice walking him through his breathing exercises when a panic attack was coming on. He breathed with his memory of her, ‘_Breathe in two, three, four, five, six, seven. Breathe out two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Breath in…_

He ran through the exercise three times, then let go of the memory, feeling marginally calmer.

“I swear,” he continued, “when I become a hero, I’ll do everything I can to make sure no one else has to go through this. I’m so sorry, Mom. I love you so much. I’m Sorry.”

He didn’t have the courage to move the towel away from her face. He couldn’t bring himself to see the utter lack of expression or color or-or-or _life_ in the face that was so like his own. He just...couldn’t. He pressed a kiss to her hair, just above the towel, and whispered a last goodbye before straightening and going back to the door. He looked back once more before sliding it open gently and stepping in to the corridor.

Gran Torino was standing against the wall, head back and eyes closed until he heard Izuku approach. He regarded the boy solemnly and straightened. “Let’s go home.”

Izuku nodded, and followed silently. The car that had brought them was still there, waiting in the parking lot. Izuku could see that the driver was wearing a Yuuei identification badge clipped to his breast pocket, though he couldn’t make out the name. He climbed into the backseat and Gran did the same on the other side. The ride home was silent as they both got lost in their own thoughts until they reached the house. The driver made sure they were both safely to the doorstep before bowing and taking his leave.

Once inside the still of the house, Gran cleared his throat and said, “I don’t guess I need to tell you how sorry I am, and how much I admired her.”

“I know,” Izuku said past the lump in his throat. “She knew, too.”

They stood in the genkan and just stared at each other helplessly for a few moments before Izuku finally said, “I’m going to go to my room. I need to...lie down and just...lie down.”

He toed off his shoes and stepped up into the house, disappearing up the stairs.

When Izuku woke, he was surprised to find he had even been asleep. It was dark outside his window, and a look at his alarm clock told him that it was past nine o’clock. His eyes felt swollen, and his chest felt heavy, but he forced himself to sit up. He padded down the stairs to the kitchen where he found a covered plate of food on the table. He ignored it for the moment and got a large glass of water, drinking it all in one go. While he refilled it, he turned and saw Gran standing in the entryway of the room. 

“You slept for a while,” he said, stating the obvious. “Hitoshi called, worried about you, so I uh...I told him about your mother.”

Izuku nodded, thinking that his phone was still turned off inside his school bag, which was probably in the genkan beside his school shoes. He was somewhat relieved that he didn’t have to tell his friend, himself. He didn’t know if he could have gotten the words out, even to type them into his phone. There was an awkward silence, then. It would probably be one of many, in the coming days and weeks.

“I uh...I didn’t know what you’d want, funeral-wise. I made arrangements with a funeral home for the wake. Inko-san didn’t seem like the religious type, but I still made arrangements with a temple to have a priest come and give the sutra. I...didn’t want to overstep my boundaries, but decisions had to be made and I didn’t think you’d want to...you shouldn’t have to…”

“Thank you, Gran,” izuku said softly, tears forming in his eyes. “I never would have figured out what to do, and I just feel so...useless.”

“That’s normal,” Gran told him, equally softly. “It’s the least I can do. You can leave the details to me, and just. Remember your mother. She left us both with so many good memories; she wouldn’t want you to get hung up on the one last bad one.”

Izuku sucked in a steadying breath and nodded with a wet sniff. “You’re right. She made every day special in some way. Could you...could you please make sure there are chrysanthemums? They were her favorite.”

“I can do that,” he promised. “We can discuss everything else later.”

“Everything else?” Izuku asked, feeling lost.

“You mother’s will, finances, where you’ll live,” Gran listed patiently.

“Where I’ll live?” Izuku asked, puzzled. “I’ll live here, won’t I? Here with you.”

Gran teared up himself, upon hearing this. “I didn’t know if that’s what you’d want. I’m not really fam-”

“You’re the only family I’ve got, now, Gran. Don’t say you want to leave me, too!” Izuku burst out, feeling panic starting to grip him.

“Damn it all,” Gran said, wiping away the tears starting to stain his cheeks. “I won’t go anywhere, kid. Not if you’re willing to let me stay.”

Izuku threw himself at Gran, then, catching him in a tight hug that was returned just as tightly. “I want you to stay,” izuku murmured wetly into Gran’s neck. “Please stay.”

**************

Izuku didn’t remember much about the wake. He sat, surrounded by people whose lives had been touched by his mother, a sea of black suits and dresses, lighting incense and carrying prayer beads. It was clear that his mother’s sweet disposition and willingness to always listen to others and do her best to support them had gained her many admirers and friends, judging by the large number of people that showed up. He was aware that his mother’s body was lying in an understated, but tasteful casket, looking as though she were only sleeping. He didn’t look too closely. He wanted to remember her as she’d been in life. Gran sat by his side in a black suit, keeping his own counsel, as Izuku was.

He was aware that Shinsou was there with his parents. His friend had murmured a soft, “I’m so sorry, Zu. I'm here if you want to talk.” Izuku didn’t remember what his reply was, but it must have been appropriate, because his friend nodded with tearful eyes, and moved to find a seat at the back. The priest eventually chanted a sutra that didn’t mean anything significant to him, but there were a lot of sniffles and quiet weeping behind him, from where he was seated at the front, surrounded by the haze and the scent of incense. Once the priest completed the sutra, the wake was officially over, and people began to file out. Izuku and Gran stood silently, bowing and nodding as people gave their condolences, but Izuku just felt numb. He didn’t even react when Baukugou Mitsuki and Masaru approached with Katsuki in tow to give their condolences. Katsuki didn’t speak at all, and Izuku didn’t do more than glance at him blankly as he murmured a quiet acknowledgement. 

The funeral the following day was similar to the wake. Izuku sat in the same seat beside Gran, there was more incense, more chanting. Before they closed the casket, many of the guests placed flowers around Inko’s head and said their final respects. Izuku and Gran were the last, and izuku took the chrysanthemums he was holding and placed them not around her head, but over her heart. He stood with silent tears streaming down his face as the casket was sealed and then followed as it was carried out to an ornate hearse. Another car had been provided for them, and they sat in the back, following his mother’s body to the crematorium.

He watched as the casket was placed respectfully on the tray and slid into the cremation chamber. Once that was done, Gran guided him gently out of the building.

“We have three hours before we come back,” he said quietly. “What would you like to do?”

Izuku, his mind full of the idea of flames consuming the remains of mother, met Gran’s eyes for the first time all day. “I want to break something.”

Gran nodded in understanding. “Let’s do it.”

Three hours later, Izuku was re-dressed in his black suit. His knuckles were abraded and wrapped in clean bandages, and his eyes were red and swollen, but he felt calmer after being allowed to go to Yuuei and punch concrete pillars on one of the training fields, reducing them to rubble in his anger fueled rampage. He’d exhausted himself, but hadn’t broken any bones while using One For All. He’d refused to let Recovery Girl heal him, only allowing her to disinfect and dress the abrasions. He wanted the pain that scrapes and bruises would provide, to make him feel more than numb. 

The process of removing the unburnt bones from the ashes had been oddly soothing, in a way. He’d expected to be horrified, and have multiple panic attacks during the process, but instead it provided a closure he didn’t know it could. With Gran’s quiet direction, he placed the bones in the urn in the correct order, and the ashes were divided into two urns; one for the altar at home, and one for the family grave, to sit alongside his father’s. 

At the end of the day, he fell into an exhausted sleep, and dreamed of his mother.

The day after the funeral started off quietly. Izuku was allowed to sleep in as long as he liked, but he eventually rose and put on his clothes, going down the stairs with the intention of going out for a run. He was surprised to see Hitoshi sitting in the kitchen with Gran, quietly sipping a cup of tea and talking in a low tone. 

“Hey,” Hitoshi said awkwardly when he spotted his friend. “I thought you might like to, you know, go running?”

“Yeah,” Izuku said with a tiny quirk to his lips, the closest he could get to a smile. “Let’s go.”

Gran nodded and waved them off, going back to a stack of papers in front of him that had him furrowing his brow as he looked them over with a pair of ‘cheater’ glasses on the end of his nose.

The boys went outside and did a few stretches before falling into an easy rhythm together. Neither of the spoke, other than to make a comment on which direction to take, but it was a comfortable silence. Izuku realized that Hitoshi knew better than anyone else he knew, besides Gran, what it was like to lose someone important. Not only had Hitoshi lost both parents, but he’d been shuffled around from orphanage to foster home to foster home before landing where he was now. Somehow, that was a morbid comfort for him, and he was oddly grateful for it. Their run took them to Dagobah Beach, where a few people were enjoying the sunshine and walking along the water. They paused at the top of the steps that led down to the sand and water, and drank from their water bottles while looking out at the bay and listening to the seagulls squawking. 

“Ready to head back?” Hitoshi finally asked, “Or we can hang out for a while.”

“I should probably get back. Gran said we had things to talk about. Finances and stuff.” Izuku sounded like he was dreading it, because he was. He had never asked where the money for all of his classes, and the new house, and many other things had come from, even though his mother’s job couldn’t possibly pay that much.

“That doesn’t sound fun,” Shinsou said. “Are you worried?”

“A little. I mean, what if we have to sell the house and move again?” Izuku said, voicing one of his biggest fears.

“Your mom probably had a life insurance policy,” Shinsou said practically. “You might feel better after talking to Gran about it. He’s helping you figure everything out, right?”

“Yeah. He’s gonna...he’s gonna stay with me, and be my guardian, if everything works out the way he says. It seems like he knows a lot of people who can help him out with stuff.” Izuku explained how her didn’t have any other family, and neither did Gran.

“I’m glad you have someone to take care of you,” Shinsou said sincerely. “I know I can’t do anything, really, but if you ever want to talk, or come over or have me come to your place...just call, okay?”

“Thanks, ‘Tosh. I’m glad we’re friends, you know?”

“I know. I feel the same.”

They jogged back to Izuku’s place, where Shinsou left him to go home. Izuku went inside and kicked off his shoes before finding Gran in the kitchen, right where he’d been sitting before they’d left.

“I don’t know why this damned paperwork as to have so many...words,” Gran said irritably. “I swear they say the same things over and over.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Izuku asked, taking a seat.

“Not unless you understand legalese. Don’t worry about it, for now, I’ll get my lawyer to sum it up for me, that’s what I pay him for.” Gran set the papers aside and picked up his cup of coffee. “Did you have a good run?”

“Yeah. It was good to talk to Hitoshi, too. I feel...a little better,” Izuku confessed. “You said we had things to talk over.”

“You’re right about that,” the old man said gruffly. “Thought we could talk about finances and such, so it won’t be weighing on your mind.”

“I was kinda worried. I mean, mom never said anything, but I know kids are expensive, and she took me to all those doctors and stuff, and the extra classes to get stronger. She even bought this house,” he said, gesturing all around them.

“Well, let me put your mind at ease on that point. You mother was a smart woman. She saved the life insurance money she got when your dad passed, and invested it wisely. That’s how she was able to buy this place. It’s completely paid for, so no worries there. If you ever want to move, you could use this place as a rental and have a nice income just from that. Then there;s your mother’s own life insurance. She had a good policy that had a specific clause in it for untimely death due to villain activity. Once it’s processed, there should be enough for you to live comfortably for a few years without having to worry about working to pay bills. Don’t go crazy with the spending, or anything and you’ll be fine. Your father also left a trust for you that you can access when you become an adult. It’s not a huge sum, but you’re not going to be poor.”

Izuku’s head was reeling, and his chest felt tight at the thought of how far ahead his parents had planned for him. 

“That brings us to another matter. All Might.” Gran ran a hand over his hair and blew out a breath.

“What does All Might have to do with anything?” Izuku was utterly baffled at this turn in the conversation.

“All Might was a _very_ wealthy man. He had his own agency, rights to merchandise and copyrights and lots of other things. His estate was worth, well, billions in the long run.”

That made sense, though it was still a staggering sum to think about it. It still didn’t make sense to Izuku what any of that had to do with him.

“You didn’t just inherit his power, Izuku. All Might knew his line of work could lead to a premature death, and he had Nighteye help him plan accordingly. Most of his estate went into various foundations and charities. He left bequests for certain people, _including his future successor_.”

“What are you saying, Gran? All Might left something for…_me_?” Izuku couldn’t wrap his head around it. He was only thirteen years old; he didn’t know about stuff like this!

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. He left a trust for his future successor, just in case. Sir Nighteye contacted me about it last night. He also advised me to tell you not to touch it until you’re an adult for...reasons.”

“Reasons?” Izuku said. “I mean, it doesn't sound like I’m going to need to touch it at all, but why?”

“Because there’s something I never told you about One For All, at least, not directly. I thought you’d figure it out on your own, if I gave you enough time. I don’t know if your mother ever realized it, or not.”

If he hadn’t told him about it directly, then that meant he’d said something _indirectly_ that Izuku had missed somewhere along the way. It had something to do with One For All itself, or about All Might’s estate. Since they’d never talked about his estate before, it must be something about the quirk itself. The quirk was a basic stockpiling one, where each person who used it cultivated it and passed it on…

Grand didn’t know if Izuku realized he was muttering his train of thought aloud. It was quiet, but he could hear everything the kid was saying.

“Pass it on...OH!” Izuku finally put the pieces together. “Sir Nighteye thinks I should hold onto the money for whoever I might pass One For All onto, some day.”

“Pretty much,” Gran agreed. 

He thought the kid understood, but the connection had a kink in the line somewhere. It didn’t occur to the boy that he could pass the quirk along at any time...like tomorrow or next year, or...whenever someone more worthy came along. Gran didn’t believe that it was an accident of fate that Izuku had been in that alley at that time. He believed Izuku was meant to wield One For All. Sir Nighteye, however, wasn’t so sure, and would be keeping his eye out for a suitable candidate that he believed All Might would have chosen with care, were he alive to do so. It was unclear to Gran how he planned to coax the kid into passing the quirk along, though. It couldn’t be forcibly taken; Izuku would have to give it up willingly and go back to being quirkless, with no hope of becoming a pro hero one day. Izuku was such a selfless kid, though, that he might just be guilted into it. Sir Nighteye was a crafty bastard with genius level intelligence. Against a teenager, he could probably talk Izuku into handing it over to whomever SIr Nighteye chose. Gran would have to keep a very protective eye on Midoriya.

“You have time to worry about that later, though. For now, it will stay in that trust, and the bank and lawyers will take care of it.”

“Okay,” Izuku said easily. “I still don’t know how to pay bills and stuff like that.”

“I can take care of that for you as your guardian and teach you about it, or we can hire someone to manage your finances for you. I’ve filled out the paperwork to become your legal guardian, and we just have to file it. I don’t know if we’ll have to talk to a judge or a social worker or just file the papers. I’ll find out on Monday.”

Izuku’s stomach chose that moment to gurgle loudly.

“When was the last time you ate, kid?” Gran demanded. It had not gone unnoticed that the food he’d left out before had gone untouched. 

“I’m not sure. A while ago,” Izuku confessed. “I wasn’t hungry.”

Gran nodded and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m not a great cook. I mostly ate frozen meals or convenience store food before moving here, but that won’t work for you. I think both of us are going to have to learn. For now, there’s onigiri in the fridge.”

Onigiri was one of the things Gran could make, so they wouldn’t starve. Izuku hopped up and got the plate from the fridge and offered one to Gran, who shook his head. Izuku took a large bite and said with his mouth full, “I can make tamigoyaki.” He swallowed the mouthful before adding, “And rice, and miso soup. I can sort of manage curry, but I have trouble cutting up the onion.” He took another large bite of the onigiri as he thought about what other things he knew how to make.

“We might need to hire some help for a while,” Gran mused. “At least until we can learn how to do the housework and cooking. I know how to do the laundry, but I was always terrible at cleaning.” He wondered idly if Nezu would just let him order meals on a weekly basis from Lunch Rush. Couldn’t hurt to ask.

“We’ll figure it out,” Izuku said confidently,. He ate another two onigiri in short order and put the remaining two back into the refrigerator. 

Considering the talk over for now, they went into the living room and turned on a news program. They were currently discussing the recent debut of pro hero Mt. Lady, who had a gigantification quirk. Izuku didn’t notice that Gran had gone still and turned a little pale. He was busy staring at the screen with intense concentration as they showed cell phone footage of the twenty meter tall woman deliver a flying kick to an equally tall villain, sending him flying backwards and crashing to the ground in a cloud of dust and rubble.

“Ooh! Some collateral damage, there!” one of the commentators pointed out as Mt. Lady stood with her rear end to the camera, making a bad pun about her butt. She waved and introduced herself to the crowd as though she’d just done something incredible, instead of tearing Izuku’s heart out of his chest and grinding it into the ground with her frivolous attitude. 

In the background of the shot, as the dust was settling around the downed villain, a small building had once stood, now collapsed under the villains’ head and shoulders. A building that Izuku knew very well, as it was the one his mother had worked in every day for the past five or six years.

“_**Collateral damage?**_” Izuku ground out, rising up to his feet in front of the screen, shouting at it. “**You call knocking a villain into a building full of people _collateral damage?_**” 

Gran stood, too, and turned the television off. Izuku turned to face him, rage written in every line on his face, red lines beginning to glow all around him as he lost control of One For All.

“Izuku…” Gran began, wanting desperately to calm the boy before he totally lost control. “Try to breathe…”

“**FUCK BREATHING!**” he shouted, tears gathering in his eyes. “They just called my mother collateral damage! Does she even know that people _died_? That her reckless showing off killed them? She didn’t even check to see if anyone needed help! She was just posing and shaking her ass for all of the...all of the...all of…” 

Izuku had run out of things to say, and was overflowing with helpless frustration as he brought his fists down on the TV stand with a roar, shattering it to bits and sending splinters flying around the room. When he realized what he’d done, he gasped and swung around to look at Gran, to make sure his outburst hadn’t hurt him, but the other man was already well out of harm’s way, thanks to his quirk. The very idea that his _own_ recklessness might have hurt someone made him want to throw up.

“Gran, I’m sorry! I just…a-are you okay? Did anything hit you? I just lost control.”

The old man hurried back over to the boy and put a hand on his head. “I get it, kid. I don’t blame you. I’m totally fine.” He led Izuku across the room toward the genkan. 

“I’ll clean all of this up,” Izuku said, looking back at the mess he’d left in the wake of his rage. There were splinters everywhere, and it was questionable as to if the television would still work after this.

“We can worry about that after we get back,” the man said, leaning down to pick up the boy’s shoes.

“Back from where?” Izuku asked, feeling almost hopeful that the answer would be to go beat Mt. Lady’s ass.

“Kid, unless I miss my guess, you’ve broken both of your hands,” came the surprised answer. “You’re not feeling it, yet, huh? We’re gonna go to Yuuei so Recovery Girl can chew me out.”

Izuku looked down at his still clenched fists, shocked to see them looking terribly bruised and starting to swell. “Aw, man.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SUMMARY: INKO MIDORIYA IS KILLED WHILE AT WORK DURING A VILLAIN APPREHENSION. IZUKU STRUGGLES TO MAKE SENSE OF IT AND DEAL WITH HIS GRIEF. GRAN PROMISES TO STAY WITH IZUKU AS HIS GUARDIAN AND PUTS HIS MIND AT EASE ABOUT FINANCIAL MATTERS. IZUKU FLIES INTO A RAGE WHEN HE LEARNS THAT HIS MOTHER DIED, BASICALLY BECAUSE MT. LADY HAD BEEN SHOWING OFF FOR HER DEBUT AND GOT RECKLESS, CAUSING THE GIANT VILLAIN SHE KICKED TO FALL ON THE BUILDING WHERE INKO HAD BEEN WORKING.


	6. Recovery and Resurgence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coping with grief is hard. Moving on is sometimes even harder.

Izuku had many more outbursts of anger in the weeks that followed Inko’s death. He was usually sorry for them afterward, but his anger toward Mt. Lady was steadily simmering at the back of his mind, and he couldn’t seem to rid himself of the empty feeling it caused. He couldn’t help continually asking himself,_ “What if she had just handled it differently? No one would have had to be hurt.” “What if she had let Kamui Woods handle it, instead of trying to hog the credit and make a name for herself?” “What if his mom had just called in sick to work that day?” _The what-ifs seemed to crowd his brain whenever he thought about it, and when it became too much, he’d have an outburst. Sometimes it was just a primal scream into a pillow, other times he’d string together every nasty swear word he’d ever heard of ad spit them all out. Sometimes he broke stuff. Luckily, after the first time, he didn’t have to go to see Recovery Girl, but he had bruised his knuckles more than once, or hurt his leg kicking something immovable. He had panic attacks once in a while, but managed to work through them, sometimes with Gran or Shinsou’s help, for which he was grateful, sometimes with medication that he tried hard to avoid because it made him so tired.

His counselor gradually helped him work through it, giving him the tools to manage his grief and an outlet to talk and rage, if he wanted. It helped.

It helped even more when he learned that Gran had filed a formal and strongly worded complaint, and that Mt. Lady was censured and suspended from hero work for six months while she underwent mandatory re-teaching of some important aspects of hero work. Gran confessed that he had threatened to sue her agency for gross negligence and incompetence in not properly screening their new heroes. He also threatened to urge the other victims of that incident to do the same. Izuku received a letter in the mail from her agency, but didn’t open it. He threw it in the trash, but was pretty sure Gran had taken it out and stashed it somewhere. That was okay. Gran was becoming very good at being his guardian.

Shinsou came over frequently, and was good at just being there. Sometimes he and Izuku hardly talked at all, but simply sat in each other’s company working on school assignments or playing video games. They went running and did exercises together nearly every morning, and Izuku went back to taking his extra classes. He still felt hollow a lot of the time, and had moments when he expected his mother to call out a greeting when he came home from school before remembering. Still, over time he allowed himself to laugh and joke with his friends or teammates, and take joy in living again. He knew his mother would not have wanted him to wallow in misery and anger, so he tried hard to not give in to those feelings when they arose at odd moments.

Izuku and Gran lived off of meals packaged up for them weekly by Lunch Rush for the first month or so, while they took the time to find their rhythm together as a family of two. Though Gran still ate too many taiyaki, they watched cooking videos together on the computer and practiced in the kitchen, learning how to make basic meals and perform basic tasks like holding a knife properly and using it to cut fruits, vegetables and meat. It was fun, for the most part, if not always edible. Shinsou even came over and helped sometimes, since he was pretty good at basic cooking from helping out at home. 

They took on chores like laundry and vacuuming, but they were at a loss for both time and knowledge for the rest. Gran hired a university student he found on a flyer pinned to a bulletin board at the market who needed a little extra money to come in once a week to do real cleaning like dusting and scrubbing the tub and cleaning the windows and mopping without making a bigger mess. 

When Izuku’s third year of middle school rolled around, Gran took a commemorative picture of Hitoshi and Izuku standing side by side in front of the school. Gran was there to speak with the school nurse about updating Izuku’s emergency contact information, which included a number for Recovery Girl, though he gave her civilian name to hide the fact that Izuku had a prominent healer as his secondary emergency contact. 

“This time next year, I expect I’ll be taking a picture with you boys in your Yuuei uniforms,” Gran told them, pocketing his camera. “Both of you be sure to work hard.”

They had agreed with excitement. One more year! It was really only about ten months until the entrance exams, and they both knew the time would fly by quickly. They were in the same class this year as well, and planned to make the most of it. The other kids poked fun of them occasionally for turning P.E. class into a veritable battle zone when they were put on opposite teams for sports, but they had fun with the competition.

Izuku’s training with One For All had begun again in earnest, as well. He and Gran worked together to brainstorm ideas to keep the boy from hurting himself when he used his quirk, and there was some slow improvement. It was Hitoshi who accidentally helped them make a breakthrough during summer break. They were in a small park that featured a decent sized grassy area and a pond, with the children’s play area further away on the other side of the water. Izuku was practicing turning One For All on and off every time Gran gave a signal by clapping his hands. Of course, they didn’t call it One For All in front of Hitoshi, they just said, ‘quirk’.

“It would be cool if you could just keep it turned on all the time,” Hitoshi said, from where he was sitting in the grass, holding a stopwatch. “Then you’d always be ready and not have to worry about how fast you could turn it on.”

Both Izuku and Gran just stopped and stared at each other for a few moments, before Gran nodded slowly and Izuku looked intrigued. 

“He’s got a point,” Gran said begrudgingly, then thought, ‘_Now that I think about it, I don’t think Toshi ever turned it off; it was just **there**, a part of who he was._’

“But keeping it turned on is really tiring,” Izuku pointed out. “And I don’t want to be glowing red all the time, do I? Or breaking bones by just existing.”

“That’s another thing I don’t get,” Hitoshi said. “_Why_ do you glow?”

Izuku shrugged. “Good question. Gran?”

“I ain’t a quirk specialist, kid. Maybe it’s a warning to villains that a beat down is coming.”

Gran paused and looked deep in thought, and neither of the boys wanted to interrupt. Finally, the man snapped his fingers. “Let’s try this. When you call your quirk, you’re calling up as much power as you can stand, right?”

“Of course,” Izuku said. “I’m trying to be as strong as I can.”

“But that ends up with injuries,” Gran pointed out, “Which...isn’t ideal. Do you think you could only call up a trickle of that power? Maybe like a water faucet only turned on a bit…”

“A lightswitch with a dimmer,” Hitoshi suggested.

“A microwave!” Izuku said at the same time.

“A microwave?” Hitoshi asked with a laugh. “How do you figure?”

“You can adjust the level of power on a microwave,” Izuku said as if it was obvious. “Duh.”

Hitoshi looked at him as if he were silly and rolled his eyes. “Dork.”

“Takes one to know one,” Izuku returned with a grin.

“The metaphor doesn’t matter,” Gran pointed out, cutting off their name-calling before they could really get into it. “Just pick something to envision that only lets through _some_ of the power. Then we’ll see if it’s any easier to hold on to.”

Hitoshi got ready with the stop watch as they waited for Izuku to get a mental image to work with. When the red glow appeared, it was much dimmer than before, but still there. Hitoshi started the stopwatch and waited. And waited. And waited. When Izuku finally let it go, he stopped the timer and announced, “Fifteen minutes and forty one seconds.”

“How tired are you?” Gran asked.

“A bit,” Izuku said cheerfully, “but mostly I just really need to use the bathroom.”

Gran rolled his eyes. There was a reason he’d never wanted to have kids of his own.

That had been the beginning of real progress. They started off low, just a pin prick in a water balloon, letting the tiniest bit of power flow through him constantly. Not even enough for a glow to show any hint of appearing. When he felt comfortable with that, and trained himself to do it without having to consciously think about it, he increased it a tiny bit more. Then a bit _more_. Gran and Hitoshi started to try to distract Izuku, to see if it would disrupt the flow of power, throwing tennis balls at him at odd moments or making him laugh.Gran started introducing tasks for Izuku to perform while the flow of his quirk stayed constant, such as lifting objects heavier than he could manage without his quirk, or throwing a ball faster or farther, or run as a speed unlikely for anyone not using a quirk. 

Before long, Izuku was using One For All constantly at a low level without fatigue, and was able to raise that level significantly to meet challenges thrown in his way. Gran estimated what All Might’s strength had been at the peak of his career, and calculated that Izuku was probably working at three or four percent of that. When needed, he could raise that power level up to about seven percent. 

“Still a long way to go, but at least you won’t break your bones, if you’re careful.”

“That’s always a bonus,” Izuku said wryly.

Hitoshi was happy for his friend’s progress with his quirk, but was worried about his own. As the entrance exams for Yuuei approached, he became more and more stressed and anxious about his own chances for passing. His quirk depended totally on using others to accomplish something, and he wasn’t confident that this would be allowed during a test, and at worst would be considered an attack on another student. He was desperately pushing himself to improve his physical prowess every day, and constantly asking Izuku to show him moves he’d learned in his extra curricular classes. Izuku was happy to help him when they had time together, but that time had grown shorter after Inko’s death, and the approach of the test, as they both had a lot on their plates.

Though Izuku and Hitoshi had always had a good relationship, they _did_ have arguments and disagreements from time to time. Usually these only lasted a few hours to a day at most before they couldn’t stand feeling bad about it, and ended up making up. Just a month before the entrance exam, though, they had an actual fight. It was over quickly, but it was intense all the same. It started when Hitoshi and Izuku were playing video games in Izuku’s room. Gran came in and made an announcement that had Hitoshi turning green with envy.

“Kid,” Gran said when the boys paused the game to look at him. “You won’t be needing to take the Yuuei entrance exam. Nezu’s letting you in on recommendation.”

“What?!” Both boys had said it at once and jumped to their feet to stare at the old man as if he was joking.

“You heard me. That doesn’t mean you can let up on your training, though. I’m going to keep busting your ass until your new teachers take over.”

“I don’t want it,” Izuku said without pause.

“What?” both Hitoshi and Gran asked him at the same time.

“I don’t want it. I want to take the test with the other kids. If I don’t, how do I know I’m as good as them?”

“S’your choice, kid.” Gran told him, but he looked impressed. “But if you _don’t_ pass, you won’t get the other spot. If you turn it down, they’ll give it to someone else.”

“If I don’t get in, I don’t deserve it,” Izuku said with a definite tone. “I want to _earn_ it, not have it handed to me.”

Gran just nodded, as if he had expected as much. “I’ll tell Nezu.” He left the room and padded down the hall.

Hitoshi swung to face Izuku and threw his hands in the air, “Are you an idiot?”

Izuku shrugged, but he was scowling. “You think I won’t make it if I don’t get in on a pass?”

“Of _course_ you’ll make it! You’ve got a freaking _amazing_ quirk!” Hitoshi didn’t quite know why he was so upset, but he was raising his voice, and his heart began to pound. He would do nearly anything to have this sort of opportunity, and Izuku was tossing it away!

“So what’s the big deal?” Izuku asked, still scowling. “If I don’t need it, they can give it to someone else that does.”

“That’s not how it works! They only give the recommendation spots to the kids they think are better than everyone else, so they don’t even need to pretend to compete! You notice they didn’t offer a spot to _me_. They want you because your quirk’s so strong that you can only use a _tiny part_ of it, and still be stronger than anyone else applying!”

Izuku’s scowl deepened. “I know that! That’s why I turned it down! I’ve worked hard to get to this point!!”

“And I haven’t worked hard?” Hitoshi asked incredulously. “You won the lottery and got the perfect freaking quirk!”

“So you’re mad because you had to work harder than me? Cause you didn’t! I didn’t even get this quirk until I was TEN! You’ve had your whole life to learn how to use yours,!” Izuku pointed out. “I have to prove that I can do something good with this quirk! I didn’t have a quirk at all before that. I didn’t even have _hope_ before that, you don’t know what it’s like…”

_ **CRACK!** _

Izuku’s head snapped back as Hitoshi punched him in the face. “You’re such an _asshole!_ he fumed, storming out of the room and down the stairs.

Izuku was still standing there in shock with his hand to his nose when he heard the front door slam. His eyes teared up, and he felt the blood starting to flow from his nose, so he finally walked out of his room to the bathroom, where he found a washcloth to start cleaning up with.

“What the hell was that all about?” Gran said from the doorway, surveying the damage. From the looks of it, he might have a broken nose.

“We had a fight and he punched me,” came the short reply.

“Did you deserve it?” Gran wanted to know.

Izuku thought about it for a moment, then hung his head. “Yeah.”

“I guess you need to apologize to him, then. Get cleaned up, and I’ll get you an ice pack.”

A few painful minutes after Gran set his nose (something he never wanted to have to repeat), Izuku was lying on his bed with an ice pack on his nose and eyes. He had tried to call Hitoshi, but the other boy hadn’t answered. Izuku had left him a voicemail, and sent him a text, but he got no answer. 

Remembering the argument in his head, Izuku couldn’t blame Hitoshi at all for decking him. His friend didn’t know about inheriting All Might’s quirk. He didn’t know that he’d had to watch is idol die to have a quirk at all. Of _course_ Hitoshi knew what it was like to not have any hope. Not only had he been an orphan bounced from place to place for most of his childhood, he’d been told his whole life that his dream of being a hero was hopeless. Of _course_ he knew what it was like to try to prove you could do good with your quirk! He’d been bullied just as much as Izuku had, even if he hadn’t gotten beaten up physically. He still had deep scars from the careless and hurtful words of others. Then suddenly he’d met Izuku, who had a similar background, and it must have been hard to watch as Izuku got all kinds of support and resources that Hitoshi would never have access to. How often did Hitoshi even get to _use_ his quirk? Not many people would be lining up to let a kid brainwash them for practice. Now, Izuku had been selfish, and hurt the only person his own age who really liked him for who he was.

“Shiiiiiiiiiiiit,” he groaned, mentally kicking himself.

“Is he still mad at you?” Gran asked, coming in with a fresh ice pack, and to check to make sure he didn’t have a concussion. Hitoshi had built up some good muscles, and thanks to Izuku and Gran’s coaching, knew how to throw a solid punch. 

“He won’t answer his phone,” Izuku said in nasally tone, not able to breathe well through his nose because of the swelling.

“It’s Sunday, so you’ll be able to tell him in person at school tomorrow,” Gran pointed out. “You’re gonna have two black eyes, though.”

He sounded kind of amused by this, and Izuku supposed that Gran agreed that he deserved what he got. It didn’t matter about the black eyes, anyway. What mattered was giving a proper apology.

“Don’t worry too much, kid. HItoshi’s a good friend. He won’t stay mad at your for long.”

It turned out to be true. When Izuku came into the classroom the next day with two purpled eyes and his nose still a bit swollen, Hitoshi had looked up an winced. He ducked his head and looked at the top of his desk, and it didn’t escape Izuku’s notice that his right hand was wrapped in a bandage. Although it made his face throb, Izuku bowed at the waist and said the words he’d been practicing since the night before.

“I’m very sorry, Histoshi-kun! I was really out of line, and there’s no excuse for the stupid things I said. Please forgive me.”

“Whoa! You mean Hitosh-kuni was the one that wrecked Izuku-kun’s face?” one of the kids nearby nearly shouted in awe.

All heads swung their way, but Izuku stayed where he was, waiting for his friend to say something.

“Stop bowing, you dork,” Hitoshi finally muttered, looking up at Izuku’s battered face. “Sorry for punching you.”

“I deserved it,” Izuku answered, straightening to make eye contact. “I was too caught up in my own head to think about what I was saying or how it would make you feel.”

“Nah, I’ve been all wound up with stress. Forget about it.”

The boys smiled at each other.

Izuku took his seat and pulled out his pencil case and notebook.

“Gran didn’t take you to get healed?” Hitoshi asked as he ignored the kids whispering to each other about how hard he must have hit Izuku to make him look that bad.

“Nope. We agreed that if I earned it, then I could deal with it the hard way. Nice punch, though. Broke my nose,” Izuku said almost cheerfully.

“You’re crazy.” Hitoshi said, feeling oddly pleased with the compliment.

The teacher entered then, and after pausing to look at Izuku’s face, continued on with the beginning of the day. That day, homeroom focused on the fact that Yuuei was not the only school holding entrance exams, and with finals coming up, the students had a lot of studying to do. Neither boy was particularly worried about their academics, so they didn’t join the groans of frustration the other kids let out. During lunch, Izuku told Hitoshi to make a list of any areas or moves he thought he might need for the Yuuei practical test, and they would spend the next three weeks going over as much as they could in preparation.

Before they knew it, the day of the exam had arrived, and both boys made their way up the steps and under the arches leading into the building. Izuku had been through here a few times in the past, but it was still imposing. While they were looking at the marble busts of hero alumni lining the walkway, Izuku tripped over an uneven surface and started to fall. Hitoshi, a few steps ahead of him, turned just in time to see a cute girl reach out and make a grab to try to stop his friend from face planting into the ground. To his amazement, Izuku stopped in mid-air and began to flail when he realized he was floating above the ground. 

“Sorry for using my quirk on you without permission,” she said cheerfully, reaching out to turn him so he was standing again before releasing her quirk by touching her fingers together. “but it would be bad to miss the exam because you hurt yourself, wouldn’t it?”

“Especially since he just finished getting over a broken nose,” Hitoshi said, backtracking in his steps. “Thanks for saving him.”

“Y-Y-Yes! Thank you very much!” Izuku stammered out.

“Good luck on your exam!” She bounced up the steps to the door and out of sight as they waved.

“We’d better hurry,” Hitoshi said, glancing at his watch, then at his schedule paper, “Looks like you’re in Hall A, and I’m in B.”

They would be separated for the duration of the exams, since they attended the same Middle School. As they reached the first room, Izuku turned to his friend and smiled encouragingly. “Good luck! You’re going to do great!”

They bumped fists and parted ways, Izuku taking a seat where the proctor directed him. He had very little trouble with the written part, and was beginning to feel more nervous, now that the practical portion was upon him. He sat in a large auditorium full of hopeful applicants and listened to the instructions, murmuring to himself about what he’d need to do to achieve the highest possible score, given how many competitors there were, and the amount of points per target. He was interrupted in his musings by a loud voice. 

There was a tall, dark haired guy standing up, his arms and hands held stiffly, almost like blades. Maybe his quirk was shovel hands, or something? The guy started going on and on about some supposed misprint on the hand out about the robots they’d be fighting and sounded pretty pompous. 

“And you there, with the uncombed hair!” the boy turned and gestured with one of his shovel hands at Izuku. He pointed at himself with a questioning look, used to people commenting on his unruly mane. “Yes! You! You’ve been muttering this entire time! It’s not only distracting to those of us taking this test seriously, it’s disrespectful to the staff giving us important information! Stop it at once!”

Izuku sank lower in his seat, embarrassed to have been caught relapsing into bad habits, and being called out on it in this huge crowd. “Sorry.”

“Hey! Why don’t _you_ stop it, four eyes!” came an obnoxiously loud (and terribly familiar) voice from directly behind him. “You’re complainin’ about being rude for interruptin’ people, but isn’t that what you’re doin’ right now? Shut up and sit down so I can get to kickin’ some robot ass!”

The tall boy looked like he wanted to say something back, but reconsidered when a couple of others cheered. He sat down, letting Present Mic continue telling them about the zero pointer. Izuku turned in his seat just enough to see that he really did recognize that voice, even though he hadn't heard it in a couple of years. Bakugou Katsuki was sitting right behind him, staring holes into him. He didn’t want to attract any more attention to himself, so he turned around and tried to listen attentively while feeling like he might be pounced on at any moment. He knew that he’d gotten so much stronger than he’d been the last time he’d been pushed around by Kacchan, but he also knew that the other boy had been working hard, as well. He honestly didn’t know how he’d fare in a fight against him, if the explosive blond tried to beat him up again.

Once Present Mic finished telling them how they’d be divided into groups, everyone was given the time to go and change into clothes suitable for the task ahead. Bakugou rose to his feet and smacked Izuku lightly on the shoulder. “Lemme see your card.”

“Huh?” Izuku couldn’t comprehend what was happening.

“Your card! With your group assignment on it!” Bakugou barked. “Hand it over!”

With a shrug, Izuku looked at his card and handed it over. He had already memorized the information on it, so it didn’t matter if it got destroyed.

Katsuki stared at it for a moment with a scowl. “Damn! I was hoping I’d be in your group so I could show you I can still beat your ass.”

“Doubtful,” Hitoshi said, coming up behind them. “Anyway, you’d get disqualified and tossed out if you tried. Let’s go, Zu.”

“I didn’t know you were in here!” Izuku said, taking his card from a growling Bakugou and turning to walk with Hitoshi. “Good luck, Kach--Bakugou,” He said over his shoulder as he walked away with his heart pounding.

Hitoshi kept a careful eye out for signs of Izuku starting to panic, but was relieved to find none. He kept up a stream of chatter as they made their way to the locker rooms, talking about how well he thought he’d done on the test. When they zipped up their tracksuits, Hitoshi stopped and looked at Izuku with desperate eyes.

“It’s giant robots,” he said as if it was a death sentence. “How the hell am I supposed to…”

Izuku put a hand on his shoulder to help ground him, like Hitoshi had done for him many times in the past. This was basically a nightmare scenario for someone whose quirk was dependant on controlling another person, which they had already said was strictly against the rules. The written and practical portions of the exam seemed way too unbalanced to favor anyone without a very strong physically based quirk. Still, Hitoshi had been training hard; his chances weren’t at zero. “You can do this. Look for the weak spots; leg joints, cameras or whatever they use to track you. Go for ones that have already taken damage. FInd stuff in your terrain to use as weapons, cram rocks or anything else you can find into any moving parts. Try to get them off balance, if you can. You’re strong and you’re quick. Use their own momentum against them like I’ve taught you in practice.”

“That was against people!” Hitoshi said frantically. “Not robots!”

“Same principle applies,” he said firmly. “I have faith in you.”

“That makes one of us.”

Izuku didn’t have any more time for a pep talk, because an announcement that they had five minutes to get to their gates was made over the speakers above them. They fist bumped one more time before they dashed off.

Izuku made it to his gate relatively quickly, and stood nervously, stretching his legs a bit. He spotted the nice girl from earlier looking like she was working through breathing exercises, and walked in her direction to make sure she wasn’t having a panic attack. He knew from experience how frightening they were, and this would be the worst possible time to get caught up in one. Eyes focused on the girl, he didn’t see the boy that approached from behind until his arm was grabbed. He looked back to see the stiff guy from the lecture hall staring at him with scorn. 

“Are you trying to distract more people? Why are you even here, if you’re not going to take this seriously? Yuuei is a prestigious school that only takes the best of the best! You can’t be throwing people off their game by interrupting their preparation!”

“Oh?” Izuku countered, “Like you’re doing now, making a big scene?”

The other kid had the grace to blush, at least, when he saw how many people were staring at them and whispering.

“Worry about yourself, okay?”

By the time he turned to look again, the girl was no longer where she had been. He hoped she was doing okay. 

A moment later, the gate opened, and everyone ran forward.

Izuku took a moment to take a deep breath, then put on a spurt of speed that had him zipping ahead of a large portion of the slower runners. Whole body humming with energy, he took a chance and turned onto a street he hadn’t seen anyone else advance down. He was rewarded with his first encounter with a robot. It was a bit larger than he’d been expecting, and it had an appendage curling up over it like a scorpion tail - a two pointer. The thing’s tail apparently had laser shooters where the stinger would be on a real scorpion, which he found out when he had to dodge several times in quick succession to avoid being hit. Izuku leaped at it using One For All to boost his power and landed on its back. He grabbed the appendage, using raw strength to bend it down toward its body, making it shoot itself. It collapsed immediately, and Izuku left it behind to search out his next target. 

Before he encountered another robot, he heard a high pitched scream, and turned in that direction without a second thought. Another two pointer had a girl cornered, tail raised and pointed in her direction. She didn’t seem to have a defense against it, or she was too scared to react. Leaping into action before she could be zapped, Izuku used the same technique as the first one, and disabled the robot. He helped the girl up over the wreckage and made sure she was uninjured before bounding off again. The third robot was a one pointer, and he was about to act when another kid came at it from a side street and look it out with a laser in his stomach. 

“Désolé,” The other person said with a smirk, “It seems I was faster than you!”

Izuku moved so quickly that the other kid didn’t see him until he was being pushed out of the way of some flying debris that would have surely hit him, if Izuku hadn’t reacted so quickly. Izuku didn’t waste time once he knew the other person was safe, sprinting off looking for more robots.

The time was flying by quickly, and the robots were becoming more scarce and harder to find before another competitor was already upon them. He managed a few more robots, thankfully with a couple of three pointers among them, and also kept a couple of more kids from being hit by debris or lasers. By his estimation, he had sixty-one points so far. Not bad, but he wasn’t sure that was enough to beat the hundreds of others giving their all today. He skidded onto a main road much wider than the others, and saw dozens of downed robots scattered around, with hero hopefuls also searching for a last few points.

Suddenly, there was a sound of grinding metal and gears, loud and getting louder as a robot approached. Everyone paused to look, only for them to gape at the zero pointer that appeared. It was a behemoth with the wheels and tracks of a tank at its base and a humanoid shaped torso. It was taller than most of the buildings, and had arms with hands and fingers. Its head was a large block with what looked like laser guns implanted in its ‘face’. 

“This thing is worth zero points? That’s crazy!” one of the other kids said to no one in particular.

**_“TWO MINUTES LEFT, LITTLE LISTENERS!”_** Present Mic’s voice boomed out over the mock city, so every participant could hear. 

Kids scattered in every direction upon hearing this, intent on staying out of the way of the monstrosity and getting in a few more points in the time left. Izuku would have done the same, but the robot suddenly brought its hands down in fists on the street, sending debris and dust flying in all directions. Seeing the windows of the trembling buildings shatter from the reverberation, Izuku froze. An Image came to his mind of his mother, who had been in a building not unlike these when she’d been killed. If this was a real city, the people in these buildings would be in serious danger! He was lost in that thought long enough for fleeing kids to pass him in their retreat as the dust cleared. It was then he heard the voice crying out.

Springing forward, he soon found the girl that had helped him earlier, trapped beneath a large piece of metal, pinned down by rubble. It was impossible to see exactly how badly she was pinned, or if she was hurt, but the robot had spotted her and was reaching down with one of the hands that had just turned the street to gravel in the blink of an eye. The girl was coughing from the dust and smoke in the air, and she saw him running forward. 

“I’m pinned in here! I can’t get my legs out, and it’s too heavy - I overused my quirk!”

Izuku rushed forward before he could formulate a plan, and flipped the debris off of her with a boost from his quirk. Then he told her, “Run, if you can. I’ll take care of this.” He couldn’t let this thing threaten any more people. 

Before the girl even had time to try to move, he leapt up onto the base of the robot, jumping and climbing as quickly as he could until he was atop its head. He kept in mind that if it fell in any direction, it could take out a building that in real life might be full of people, or onto the very real life girl who was still staring at him in awe. He jumped up as high as he could manage with accuracy and ramped One For All up as high as he could manage before landing on the robot’s head again, bringing his fists down for good measure. He knew in an instant that he’d broken several bones, and winced at the adrenaline-muted pain shooting up his legs and arms. The impact of his landing compressed the robot, causing the top of the head to cave into itself, and sending a chain reaction all the way down the thing’s spine in little explosions as components collapsed and crushed from the pressure.

Relief coursed through Izuku in equal measure with the pain, as he tried to find his balance on the unstable robot His ankles refused to support his weight, definitely broken from the force of his jump. The next moment he was in freefall, cursing himself for not holding back a little with his quirk. He barely had time to register that it was really, _really_ going to hurt when he landed, when he felt a sting on his cheek and stopped falling.

The girl had used a chunk of one of the destroyed robots to float up to meet him, so that she could use her quirk to keep him from hurting himself even more when he landed. He hung there for a moment, suspended three or four meters off the ground, then she released her quirk and he dropped from there, instead of fifty meters. It still hurt, but he wasn’t dead, which had been a concern for him as he got closer to hitting the ground. The moment her quirk released, she also fell with the chunk of metal. She clapped both hands over her mouth, looking distinctly green before emptying her stomach onto the ground. Izuku wrinkled his nose because...gross, but also in sympathy.

“Okay,” he said, lying on his back and staring at the sky for a moment. “_OW_.”

A buzzer sounded then, and Present Mic’s voice echoed through the city. _**“That’s TIME UP, little listeners! This exam is OVER!”**_

“Craaaaap. I hope I got enough points!” he told the sky.

Students stood milling around, waiting for some sort of instructions, and surveying the huge mess of destruction left behind. Just then, a petite old lady came out onto the street, using a walking stick in the shape of a syringe.She handed out handfuls of gummies to students as she passed them, telling them they’d done well. Once she spotted him on the ground, she walked right up to Izuku and looked down at him with a not unkind expression. “You again.”

He managed a weak grin, despite the pain. “Recovery Girl,” he said politely. “Little help?”

“Honestly,” she murmured, bending down to place a kiss on his forehead. “That’ll knock you out for a bit. Rest well.”

He was already drifting off to sleep as he felt the sharp tingle and slight heat of his bones knitting themselves back together.


	7. Passes and Fails

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys learn their test results and the first day of school rolls around...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! Everyone who left kudos and comments made an otherwise super crappy week at work SO much more bearable and put a smile on my face when I wanted to cry. You all kept me afloat! I DO have a Tumblr account (AisforAmy71) if any of you wanna follow me, but I don't really post very often or anything interesting (no time, for one). Again. THANK YOU! *dashes off to work again*

When izuku found consciousness again, he was lying on a familiar bed in Recovery Girl’s office. He opened his eyes, feeling refreshed and pain-free to find both Gran and Hitoshi playing a game of chess on a small instrument table beside him.

“How long have I been out?” he rasped, clearing his throat as he sat up.

“Izuku! How are you feeling? You’ve been conked out for, like, three hours!” Hitoshi said. “Gran’s beaten me at chess four times.”

Recovery Girl bustled over and had a look at him before allowing him to get up. “That was reckless, young man!” she scolded, even has she offered him a PEZ candy from a Kamui Woods dispenser. “If you hadn’t done it to save that girl, I’d give you such a…”

“Yeah, Zu! Way to go!” Hitoshi interrupted, coming to his friend’s defense. “How many points do you think you got?”

“I counted sixty-one,” Izuku said, crunching on the candy. “But it was totally crazy in there, so I’m not completely sure. You?”

“Your advice was great! I’m pretty sure I scored at least forty points! A few of the others damaged the bots without finishing them off, so I swooped in for the kill!” Hitoshi said excitedly He obviously felt good about his performance.

“Sweeeet!” Izuku said. 

Gran put away the chess set while the boys talked, then they all thanked Recovery Girl and left her office. Izuku retrieved his clothes from the locker room.

It had been a long day, and Izuku was _starving_. To reward them for a job well done, Gran treated them to an early dinner at a family restaurant that just happened to have six different types of Taiyaki on the dessert menu. Both boys shoveled down their meals as though they’d been raised by wolves, while ignoring the fact that Gran was eating dessert for dinner. It was a special occasion, after all.

The boys texted each other long into the evening once they got home, reliving each takedown and lamenting that they would have to wait a full week before they got their test results.

When the day finally came, Gran simply tossed a thick envelope onto Izuku’s lap where he was playing video games. “There’s your results.”

Izuku tossed aside the game controller without even bothering to save, and picked up the embossed envelope with shaking hands.

“You just gonna stare at it all day?” Gran groused. It was obvious he was nervous about the results, as well. He hadn’t been able to get any of his contacts at the school to give him an advanced list in case it ruined the surprise for the kids.

“Maybe,” Izuku breathed. “I mean, this is my future, in here!”

He stared at it a little longer before ripping it open. Inside was a flat disk of some kind that fell into his hand that crackled and lit up. Realizing it was upside down, Izuku flipped it over and set it on the coffee table, where a hologram projection sprang to life.

“_Hey there, little listener!_” Present Mic’s voice was tamer than usual, maybe because he had to make dozens of these recordings, or maybe this was just what he sounded like when not using his quirk. “This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for! It’s been one week since the entrance exam! Did you pass? Did you fail? Let's find out! He was handed a sheet of paper from someone off screen and he looked it over. _”You passed the written exam with above average marks, so let's see how you did on the practical!”_

A screen to Mic’s left came on and a highlight reel from Izuku’s practical exam began to show his encounters with various robots. 

_“You got a very impressive sixty-one points! This alone would be JUST enough to put you in the top rankings, but that was not the only thing you were being judged on! That’s right! You were also judged on RESCUE POINTS! This is a school for heroes, after all! We couldn’t just ignore those who help people in need! A panel of judges was on hand to score each act of heroism on a scale of one to ten, giving you the median score! Let’s watch!”_

The screen to his left showed more highlights, showing Izuku keeping others from being injured by falling debris, lasers and flying rubble. The final few seconds was of him attacking the zero-pointer and bringing it down single handedly. Gran watched with raised eyebrows, seeing the exact moment when seventeen of Izuku’s bones either broke or fractured in his hands and feet. It was certainly impressive, if not fool hardy. 

_“Midoriya Izuku, you earned a whopping NINETY SEVEN rescue points! I’m told that’s the highest score in the history of this test! Nice going! So! Let me be the first to congratulate you on an excellent performance and say, WELCOME TO YUUEI HIGH SCHOOL!” _

The projection turned itself off, and Izuku sat there, looking stunned. He didn’t know exactly how to feel: Elated? Terrified? Eager? Anxious? So many emotions filtered through his brain, it was short circuiting him.

“Your mother would have been proud,” Gran said quietly, ”and so am I.”

That statement was enough to ground him in the here and now, and Izuku suddenly jumped to his feet and bowed to gran. “Thanks! Thank you! I never would have been able to do any of this without you!”

“You did all of the work, kid,” Gran said affectionately.

It was at that moment that Izuku remembered something from the hologram. “Gran! Oh no! Gran! Present Mic said that my sixty one points would have been just enough to rank at the top. Hitoshi said only got about forty! If he didn’t get a LOT of rescue points…”

Realization dawned on Gran, and he looked at Izuku with regret. “Damn. That doesn’t sound like good news, does it?”

Izuku was about to call his friend, when his phone pinged, letting him know he got a message. It was from Hitoshi, of course.

4:47 PM _I got my letter today. I didn’t make it into the hero course, but they said it was close._

While Izuku was trying to decide whether to call him or text him back, another message popped up.

4:48 PM _I don’t want to talk about it right now. I’m okay, just disappointed. I still got into the general studies course._

4:48 PM _I know you got in, there was never any question of that. Good Job. I will talk to you tomorrow at school, okay?_

Izuku felt tears prick his eyes as he read the texts, before sending back a short reply.

4:49 PM _ I understand. I’ll talk to you tomorrow._

Dinner that night was not as joyful as it should have been, since Izuku was heartbroken for Hitoshi. He sat staring at his rice bowl, moping, until Gran finally sighed and spoke up.

“Look, I wasn’t going to tell you this, but...there still might be hope for him.”

Izuku’s eyes shot up to meet Gran’s.

“If he can make a really good showing at the Sports Festival in the fall, he _might_, and that’s a BIG might, be able to earn a spot in the hero course. As far as I know, it’s only ever happened once before.”

“But it _is_ possible?” Izuku demanded eagerly.

“Like I said, it’s a tiny, tiny chance, but yes. It’s possible. I wasn’t going to say anything, because I didn’t want to get your hopes up too high,” Gran cautioned. “Hitoshi worked hard, and from what he told you on the phone message thing, it was pretty close. Don’t let him slack off on his physical training, if you want him to have any hope at all.”

Izuku was already mumbling to himself about finding footage from past Sports Festivals that they could review, whether or not Yuuei would let Hitoshi use their facilities for practice, and a dozen other things. Gran left him to it, finishing his meal before leaving the dishes to Izuku and going to watch television. They’d figure it out, or they wouldn’t. All he could do was give them advice, if they asked for it. As he passed the little altar with pictures of Inko and Hisashi, he paused and lit an incense stick.

“That kid of yours is something else,” He murmured quietly.

The next day at school, Izuku could hardly wait to talk to Hitoshi. He had a bounce in his step as he arrived in class, only to find that his friend was not at his desk. He checked his phone briefly, only to see a message saying that Hitoshi had an appointment, and would be late. Sinking into his chair, some of the other students came to talk to him, and asked about the results of the exam.

“Weren’t Yuuei hopefuls supposed to get their results yesterday or today?” one of the boys asked him.

“Oh,” Izuku said, tucking his phone away. “I got mine yesterday.”

“Sorry, dude. That’s a wicked hard school to get into. I was hoping you’d make it.” another boy said sincerely.

“What? No! I passed! I got into the hero course,” Izuku said with a smile.

Everyone started speaking at once, congratulating him and asking him questions. They were amazed that he wasn’t shouting his success from the rooftops, which meant…

“Wait, didn’t Shinsou take that exam, too?”

Izuku looked down at his desk he didn’t really know if it was his place to tell them, but it might be easier, if Hitoshi didn’t have to do it. . “He did. He just missed the hero course; he got into general studies.”

“Ah! Rotten luck! He tried so hard, too!” one of the girls lamented. “I hope he’s not too disappointed. Even gen ed at Yuuei is tons better than anywhere else.”

The bell sounded, and the teacher arrived, signalling the start of class. Hitoshi made an entrance about thirty minutes later, pass in hand. He gave Izuku a fist bump across the aisle as he sat down, and a half smile. He looked tired, but he always looked tired. Izuku studied him for a moment before turning to his lessons.

During lunch, Hitoshi was the first to speak. “Sorry about being late. My parents decided that they needed to come talk to the guidance counselor with me.”

“Is everything all right?” Izuku liked Hitoshi’s foster family. They were supportive and friendly people who cared deeply about each other. He’s always thought that the only reason they hung out more at Izuku’s house was because it was quieter. Hitoshi’s house was always so full of noise and activity that it was impossible to escape from without actually leaving the whole house.

“Fine! It’s just...I was upset about not making the hero course, you know.” 

He seemed to have made peace with it for now, but Izuku knew better than anyone how these things could come back later to haunt you. “Of course. I’m sorry I couldn’t, you know, be there for you.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not that I was mad that you got in, or anything, I was just too disappointed to talk about it, and didn’t want to ruin it for you. Congrats, by the way.”

“Thanks, but I have some news I wanted to…” Izuku started, eager to share what Gran had told him.

Hitoshi held up a preemptive hand. “Hold on! I’m not done,” he said with a chuckle. “My parents were so bummed for me, that they decided that I should try to take the exams for Ketsubutsu and Shiketsu.”

Izuku’s mouth dropped open. He hadn’t even considered that as an option, but… “That makes sense! Is that why they wanted to meet with the counselor this morning?”

“Yep. I didn’t want...I didn’t really consider it, because they’re both too far away to commute to from home. I’d have to live by myself in a boarding house or apartment or something,” Hitoshi pointed out. “My folks can’t afford that, and I’m not _officially_ even really their kid. They can’t just send me off to live on my own without me being removed from the foster system, or at least their care.”

Izuku felt ashamed that his initial reaction to hearing it was relief. Hitoshi deserved every chance to become a hero in any way he wanted, and it was selfish of Izuku to be happy that his best friend wasn’t being taken away from him.

“On top of that…” Hitoshi said, “not only is it too late to take the exams for those schools, I had my heart set on going to Yuuei with you.” Hitoshi sounded wistful as he said it, but shrugged. He was far too used to not getting things he really wanted, just because of circumstances that shouldn’t even be an issue.

“Well, you might like what I have to say, then,” Izuku said, talking around a mouthful of rice. 

“Finish chewing.” Hitoshi always hated it when Izuku talked with his mouth full. He said it was like watching one of his little sisters eat.

Izuku made a show of chewing quickly and washing it down with banana milk before continuing. “Gran says that it’s possible for you to get into the hero course with a really outstanding showing at the sports festival. He said it’s really hard, but it happened once about fifteen years ago!”

Hitoshi looked at him with disbelief. “Seriously?”

Izuku nodded emphatically, since his mouth was full again. He swallowed and said, “It’s super hard, I guess, but it’s worth a try! We could watch all the old videos of past events and try to work out what you’d need to do to get past all of them. Even if they don’t have any of the same events, there’s gotta be some useful stuff in there to help! If it’s not against the rules, we could help each other win, too!”

Hitoshi felt foolish for the tears that gathered in his eyes at the news, and at how willing and eager Izuku was to help him achieve his dream. “Let’s do it.”

The rest of the school year was over pretty quickly after that, and the boys spent every spare minute they had going over every bit of footage they could find and analyzing it a million different ways. Gran continued to help them practice their techniques in fighting; martial arts was all well and good, but villains never played by the rules. He taught them a few ‘dirty’ fighting skills that might come in handy, such as a sucker punch and throwing dirt in your opponent's face, punching in the throat, jabbing eyes, pulling ears, anything was fair game.

“If you’re fighting a villain, then you’re fighting for your life,” he told them sternly when they seemed hesitant to follow his advice. “In school or in a competition, then no, you follow the rules and parameters of the fight. On the street, where it’s possible to be killed, you can’t bother being noble.”

He had them spar against each other often. Izuku was, of course, more skilled than Hitoshi, but their sessions helped the indigo haired boy learn how to move in situations where he was the weaker opponent. He often stopped them to have them go through a set of moves again, so he could correct them, or have Izuku teach his friend how to perform a technique. The most interesting thing they worked on, though, was exercising Hitoshi’s quirk.

Allowing another person to take over your free will and give you directions that you have no power over takes a tremendous amount of trust. Izuku not only trusted Hitoshi, he was extremely curious to be able to finally see the boy’s quirk at work. He’d already questioned his friend extensively about it, and dedicated a couple of pages in his hero analysis notebook. He begged Gran to record it on his phone, so he could see what had happened once it was over. According to Hitoshi, people he brainwashed didn’t remember anything that happened during the time he was controlling them. They sat down at the kitchen table one Saturday afternoon and talked over what would happen, and what Hitoshi would command him to do under Gran’s watchful guidance.

“Okay,” Hitoshi said. “I’ll ask you a question, and once you answer it, I’ll take over. I’m going to tell you to so something simple, like a handstand, then I’ll release you and you can tell us what it was like.”

“Don’t try to fight his control yet,” Gran said before they got started. “I want to try this in an open area, where we can see if your timing is any slower when you’re trying to resist, and if he can make you use your quirk.”

Izuku nodded, and Hitoshi looked at him and asked, “Are you ready?”

“Yep!” As soon as that single syllable was out of Izuku’s mouth, Hitoshi took control.

“I’ll be damned,” Gran said as he watched Izuku’s eyes glaze over and lose focus immediately. He held the kid’s phone steady while it recorded.

“Do a handstand.” Hitoshi ordered. His voice didn’t sound any different than it usually did, which kind of made it a little creepier. There was no hint of a drop in tone or an echo or anything to indicate that Izuku wasn’t just doing a handstand because he thought it was a great idea.

Izuku obeyed immediately, which turned out to be something of a problem, as he did the handstand _on the chair_ he’d just been sitting in.

“Get down safely, and do a handstand on the floor.” Hitoshi corrected.

Izuku again obeyed immediately then Hitoshi released him without any need for a trigger word. One moment Izuku looked a bit like a zombie, the next he was saying, “Whoooooooa! That’s SO cool!” and turning himself upright.

Hitoshi let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He knew Izuku trusted him, and had gone into the experiment willingly, but was still half expecting him to be repulsed by it, once he’d actually experienced it. Knowing his fears were baseless took a weight off of him he hadn’t known he’d been carrying.

Izuku watched the video of the event, because he really had no memory of it, and laughed when he watched himself do a handstand on the chair. “It looks like you’re going to have to be really careful how you word your commands.”

Shinsou nodded. “I haven’t really had much practice, so I guess it’s good to find out before I tell someone to go to hell and they start digging.”

Even Gran snorted out a laugh at that one. “That’s a fair point, though. You should practice with easy tasks like you did just now, and work up to more complicated things to see how much you have to micromanage someone under your control. Could you tell them to make a sandwich, or do you walk them through the whole process of getting out the bread, using a knife to spread mayonnaise and all that.”

So that was what they did. They worked on fighting techniques, quirk development and anything they could think of to give Hitoshi an edge during the Sports Festival in just a few months’ time.

When the first day of school rolled around, Izuku and Shinsou posed for a commemorative picture for Gran, then rode the train together for their first day. As they walked through the gate, Izuku spotted a boy with half white and half red hair standing off to the side of the walkway. He had a red spot over his left eye that appeared to be a birthmark or scar, that saved his face from utter perfection, and…

Izuku suddenly came to a jarring stop as he ran into a metal pole with a loud _clang!_ Shinsou burst into laughter (along with quite a few others nearby) and asked, “What the hell was that?”

Izuku blushed a brilliant shade of red as he stepped back and rubbed the side of his head. “Sorry...I got distracted.” He checked to see if the boy he’d been starting at had seen him make a fool of himself, but he was turned to face the other way. Small mercies. “Come on, it wasn’t _that_ funny!”

“It was! It totally was!” Shinsou insisted, wiping a tear from the outside corner off his eye. “What were you looking at that was so interesting you didn’t even notice a huge as pole right in front of you?”

“N-nothing! It was nothing! Let’s go! Don’t want to be late for the first day of class, right?” Izuku said, sounding a little panicked and a LOT embarrassed.

Shinsou turned to scan the area, but didn’t see anything particularly interesting. Maybe there’d been a cute girl? There were quite a few of them hanging around, so it wasn’t out of the question, but Izuku had never seemed particularly attracted to any girls so far, that Hitoshi knew of. Anyway, he’d at least gotten a great moment of humiliation to tease Izuku with later.

They bumped fists and parted ways at the end of the corridor that divided the courses. Izuku made his way down the hallway, following the signs to class 1-A. His nerves were intense, and why was the door so freaking _huge_? He was already a little sensitive about his utterly average height, he didn’t need to see evidence that he might be literally _towered over_ by his classmates. He slid the door open and only hesitated a moment before stepping inside and looking around. 

Quite a few students were already inside, including…

“Oh hey! It’s you! I hoped we’d meet again!” 

Izuku blinked at the cute girl from the exam and smiled upon recognizing her. “Ah! It’s good to see you!”

“You, too!” she grinned cheerfully. “Actually, I wanted to thank you for helping me out at the end of the exam. I’m Uraraka! Nice to meet you!”

“Midoriya,” he answered, relieved that at least one of his new classmates seemed to be friendly. “Nice to meet you, too!” 

His eyes scanned around the room until they landed on a certain blond boy with his feet up on a desk, looking defiant. Another familiar face from exam day was also there, attempting to scold Bakugou for being disrespectful to school property.

“They’ve been arguing with each other non-stop since I got here,” Uraraka said as she followed Izuku’s gaze. “Both of them seem a little...intense.”

“That one’s always been like that,” Izuku said, nodding at Bakugou. “The other one tried to tell me off more than once on the day of the exam.”

“Yikes,” she commiserated. “I didn’t realize you knew one of them, sorry if I said something offensive.”

“Don’t worry about it, Kacchan...I mean _Bakugou_ has always been pretty offensive towards me. We went to the same elementary school until almost sixth year,” Izuku told her bluntly.

Several more students had come in while they’d been chatting. When the boy he’d seen outside sidled past him, Izuku stared for a moment, startled, then turned back to Uraraka, who was talking about how great the school was rumored to be. At that moment, the kid with glasses who had scolded him at the exam came forward purposefully, arms chopping the air emphatically with every step. 

“It’s you!” he said loudly enough that every head in the class turned to stare, probably to see who else he was going to take issue with this morning. “Please allow me to introduce myself! My name is IIda Tenya, from Soumei Academy! I must say that I greatly misjudged you! You realized that there was more to the entrance exam than just fighting robots while I missed the point entirely. You’re the better student.”

“I really think you’re overstating it,” Izuku murmured, glad that he wasn’t being verbally attacked again.

“Nice to meet you, Iida-kun! I’m Uraraka Ochako from--”

“You can make friends outside of class time,” came a voice from somewhere below them.

Uraraka actually let out a little scream, and Izuku automatically shoved her half behind him defensively when he looked down and saw what looked to be a giant yellow caterpillar with a human face. There was a zipping sound, and the belling of the thing started to peel open, revealing a man in a black jumpsuit with a long scarf around his neck.

“Eraserhead!” Izuku exclaimed once the man was standing. 

The man in question blinked at him with what people who knew him might call a look of surprise. Izuku just stared at the man for a moment with stars in his eyes; he’d watched the old video of the Sports Festival where Aizawa Shota (AKA: Eraserhead) had fought his way to a place on the podium and climbed from General Studies to the Hero Course. To Izuku, this man was nothing short of legendary! Wait until he told Hitoshi!

“Everyone take your seats, class has already begun,” Eraserhead said to the class in general, but looking at Izuku. 

There was a quick scrambling of feet as bodies slid into their seats. Of _course_ Izuku’s seat would be right behind Bakugou Katsuki’s, why wouldn’t it be? At least if he was seated behind him, he’d be able to see him coming if he tried anything.

“It took you eight seconds to settle down. That’s eight seconds you’ve already wasted. From now on, I expect every student to be in their seats and ready to learn before I arrive. Rational students would have intuited as much. Now, put your gym clothes on and get outside.” 

Everyone scrambled to get their bags and made their way to the locker rooms. Ten minutes later, they were all gathering as a group in their blue, white and red tracksuits. 

“We’re having a quirk assessment test,” Aizawa announced without preamble. 

Uraraka raised her hand a little timidly and said, “Weren’t we supposed to go to the opening ceremony?”

“If you want to become pro heroes, you don’t have time for pointless ceremonies. You’re going to need to prioritize training and classes over everything else. Yuuei doesn’t follow traditional academic boundaries and the teachers can run their classes as they see fit.”

Everyone was silent as they let that bit of information sink in.

“In the past, you’ve been used to traditional standardized testing, but you’ve never been allowed to use your quirks in physical testing. Today, that changes. You’ll be put through a battery of eight assessments where you’ll prove to me why you deserve a place in my classroom.”

A couple of the kids looked thrilled by this news, Bakugou chief among them, Izuku noticed. He didn’t feel too worried about it, he was in excellent shape fitness-wise, and with the addition of his quirk to aide him, he was comfortable with his level of ability.

“Bakugou,” Aizawa called out. “You got the most take-down points of anybody in the exams. When you were in middle school, what’s the farthest you ever threw a softball?”

Bakugou stepped forward with a smirk. “Sixty-seven meters.” 

Izkuku fought the urge to roll his eyes. Of course someone so driven by the desire to beat everyone (often literally), would have all of his stats memorized.

“Try it now, using your quirk.” Aizawa tossed him the ball in his hand and stood back. “Anything goes, just stay in the circle.”

Bakugou stretched his arm a little before gripping the ball. “You asked for it.”

He wound up the pitch and let it fly with a shout of, “DIE!” The force of the explosion he let off to boost it sending the ball rocketing into the air, a trail of fire and smoke behind it. It was barely visible in its descent.

Aizawa held up his phone and showed a reading that said: 705.2 m. “You have to know your maximum capabilities. It's the most rational way to determine your potential.”

The other students all exclaimed in awe over the distance Bakugou had gotten with his throw; even Izuku. The amazingness of his former friend’s quirk had never been in question, just the way it had shaped his attitude. Bakugou looked satisfied that he’d shown them all how great he was, and drank up the praise as his natural due.

“That looks like fun! I wanna go next!” 

Izuku looked at the girl who had spoken; she was entirely pink, both skin and hair with pale horns on each side of her head. Her sclera was actually black, which was a striking contrast to her golden pupils. Izuku wondered what her quirk was, even while he winced at her cavalier attitude; he didn’t think Aizawa would take kindly to it.

He was right.

“Fun? You think you’re here for fun? You’ve got three short years to become the best versions of yourselves you can be. If you’re looking for fun and games, you came to the wrong school.” Everyone was hanging on his every word nervously. “Your test today is going to determine your potential. The student with the lowest score will be judged to have none, and will be instantly expelled.”

Shock ran through the assembled class as though someone had directed a lightning bolt their way. Everyone looked at each other nervously, sizing each other up to try to gauge who was stronger and who was weaker than themselves.

Uraraka spoke up again, sounding indignant. “You can’t send one of us home on the first day! That’s unfair!”

Izuku really did cringe this time. He knew the answer to that before his teacher even spoke.

“You think the world is _fair_? It isn’t. Not even a little. Some of you have already learned that.” Aizawa said. (Izuku could swear that the man’s gaze settled on him for a fraction of a second longer than the others when he said this.) “Natural disasters can level whole cities? Villains that don’t care who or what they destroy? Catastrophic accidents? None of those are fair, and it’s a hero’s duty to combat that unfairness any way they can. For the next three years, you’ll be thrown into hellish situations and have to make impossible choices one after another. You’ll have to meet all of those challenges head on, plus ultra-style.”

The group as a whole sobered up as they were called to take their turns with each test. Izuku was in heaven, getting to see so many interesting quirks at once and up close! He wished he had his notebook, so he could take notes on each one right away. 

The first test turned out not to be the softball throw, but the fifty meter dash. There were two lanes set up for them to run in pairs, with a robot on a tripod that announced their finishing times at the end. Izuku was certainly not the fastest, since the kid he had thought of as having shovel hands actually had engines in his legs! Still, he came in not far behind him, and felt secure in his score after watching some of the others.

Test number two was grip strength, which he also could not place first in, seeing as a huge guy with multiple arms pulled 540 kg on his test. In the third trial, the standing long jump, Izuku had a much better score, leaving Bakugou staring at him with suspicion when he surpassed his score, even with explosions factored in. Izuku simply walked away to stand nearer to Aizawa when it looked like Bakugou was trying to approach him with a scowl on his face.The best way to win a fight was to not let one start.

The fourth test was repeated side jumps, which the kid with purple balls on his head had everyone beaten on. It was a wonder he didn’t get whiplash or something from how fast he bounced between the piles of the purple balls he pulled off his head and left in mounds on either side of the jump area. Everyone clapped when he finished, impressed in spite of the fact that it was an intense competition. When it came time for a girl with a high ponytail to do her test, the boy with the balls on his head sidled up to Midoriya and whisper-yelled, “Look at those boobies bounce!” He even wiped some drool off his mouth as he said it. Izuku raised his eyebrows and took a large step away. “Not cool.”

Everyone glared at the perverted kid, and Izuku could only hope the the subject of his disgusting comment was too focused on her test to hear it. The boy with spiky, violently red hair looked down at the kid with his arms crossed and said, “That’s about enough out of you. Don’t be a jerk, man.”

“Oh, come on, you can’t tell me you didn’t notice!” the kid whined when everyone made it a point to move away from him, especially the girls.

“Stay away from us, you little goblin,” said a girl with exceptionally long earlobes.

The fifth task was the ball throw. Uraraka amazed everyone with a score of _infinity_ when it came time for her to throw the softball. Most of the kids had average scores, with a few outliers. A girl called Yaoyorozu actually created a ball flinger like one might use for playing fetch with a dog, to fit the size of the softball _by pulling it out of her arm_! She got a nice distance with it, too! Izuku managed to get 704.9 meters, just shy of beating Bakugou, much to his disappointment. Also of concern was the fact that his whole hand was bruised from putting too much power behind the throw; nerves had made him jumpy.

The last three tests were typical number of sit-ups, the seated toe touch and a long distance endurance test. Izuku placed near the top in all of them, and was happy that he wouldn’t be the one to be expelled, but at the same time, felt terrible for whoever would lose their shot today. He knew how devastated he would be, if it were him.

“That concludes the assessments for the day,” Aizawa announced. “The person who scored the lowest was Mineta Minaru.”

All eyes turned to the kid with the purple balls sitting like a mohawk on his head. 

“I want to tell you all right now, that when I said that I would expel the lowest scoring student, I was lying.” Aizawa’s expression wasn’t a happy one, even though Mineta was thanking God loudly for the words he’d just heard. “It was to have been a logical ruse to get you all to give your best effort. I wasn’t _going_ to expel the lowest scoring student, but it looks like it’s going to happen, anyway.”

“_WHAT?_” Mineta shouted in outrage, “You just said it was a lie to get us to work hard.”

“It was,” Aizawa agreed. “Your score is not why I’m expelling you. Your attitude toward the female students is. Your comments and actions here today have spoken for you, and they told me you don’t belong here. Collect your things immediately and a security bot will see you to the gate and confiscate your student identification card.”

Everyone was silent while Mineta stood, stunned. He looked at the others to see if anyone would protest, but all anyone said, was, “Eew. I thought it was an accident when he touched my butt.”

Finally, he hung his head and turned to walk inside.

“Let this be a warning to the rest of you, girls as well as boys. Sexual harassment will not be tolerated, and has no place here. I will not hesitate to expel anyone caught treating another person that way. Any reports will be taken very seriously and a full investigation performed. Am I clear?” 

“YES, SENSEI!” they all shouted at once.

“Good. Get back inside and get changed. There’s a syllabus for each of you in the classroom, Make sure you pick one up and look it over by tomorrow. I gotta go talk to the principal about MIneta,” Aizawa told them all. “Dismissed.’

In the locker room, the boys were discussing how the day had gone, and how crazy it was that one of them had been expelled already.

“That perverted little creep wouldn’t have made it far with that attitude, anyway,” the kid with bright red hair said with a shrug. “So unmanly.”

“Oi! Deku,” Bakugou growled, prowling closer to Izuku with a scowl. The rest of the boys went still at his tone and eyed him warily. “What the fuck? You were a quirkless little shitstain the last time I saw you. How the hell did _you_ manage to get into a school like this?”

“The same way you did, Bakugou,” Izuku sighed. “I took the exam and scored well. They told you I had a quirk, you just chose not to believe them.”

“Bakugou,” Iida said, stepping forward to try to mediate. “I was in the same testing ground as Midoriya; he _definitely_ has a quirk. He took out a zero-pointer all by himself. I saw it with my own eyes. There’s no doubt about it.”

Bakugou growled. “Stay outta this, four eyes.” He turned back to Izuku and pointed right in his face. “So back when we were kids, you were just lying to me the whole time about being quirkless so you could look down on me? What kind of fucked up…”

“I wasn’t lying. Not that you ever listened to me anyway, but I didn’t get my quirk until I was ten.”

Some of the other boys murmured in surprise, but Izuku ignored them, just wanting to make himself clear, once and for all.

“ It turned out that it was staying dormant, because it was too much for my body to handle when I was little. I was too weak,” Izuku said, looking not only at Bakugou, but at the others in the room who seemed to be fascinated by what he was revealing. 

“Whoa! Seriously? Not until you were _ten_?” the boy with tape dispensers in his elbows said in awe. “I’ve never heard of anything like that!”

Some of the others nodded, including the boy Izuku had noticed that morning: Todoroki. Izuku could feel his face heat.

“That’s because it’s bullshit,” Bakugou spat at them. “Don’t be stupid.”

“The doctors had never heard of anything like it, either, which is why they told me I was quirkless to begin with.” Izuku said, as if his childhood bully hadn’t spoken. “Then there were signs, but we didn’t know what they were, at first, because...quirkless. But everything got figured out somehow, and I started working to make myself stronger so I can use it. The stronger I can get, the more powerful my quirk can be.”

“That must have been very difficult for you to deal with, MIdoriya!” Iida said expressively.

Izuku nodded. “Some people made it a lot harder. Kids without quirks get treated...unfairly, most of the time. I got beat up a lot, as if it was somehow okay to pick on the one kid who had no defenses.” He looked straight at Bakugou as he said this. “But I won’t let anyone bully me, now.”

Izuku had said everything he needed to, and turned to head out of the locker room and back to class. Most of the other boys hurried along with him, peppering him with questions about how his quirk had appeared, and what he’d done to get stronger. Bakugou hung back, still looking furious, but not pursuing another confrontation. 

Izuku could hear Kirishima (the red haired one) talking to Bakugou, “What’s it matter when he got his quirk? He has it now, and it was good enough to get him into the hero course!”

“Shut up, Shitty Hair,” Bakugou growled. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

They traversed the halls back to class 1-A to find the girls had been faster than them to get back, and were all gathered around one of the desks, chattering. When they noticed the boys’ arrival, they turned and Uraraka waved them over, obviously excited.

“Guys! Guess what! You’ll never guess!” She stepped to the right to reveal a boy sitting in Mineta’s former desk.

“_Tosh_?” Izuku gasped, a smile growing ever wider on his face. “Don’t tell me…” 

Hitoshi sat at the desk, looking stunned. “Zu- The principal came to my classroom about five minutes ago and told me that there had been a sudden opening in the hero department. Since I was the next highest score on the entrance exams, he was giving me the spot.”

Izuku couldn’t help the tears that sprang to his eyes, though he breathed through it and didn’t let them fall. “That’s amazing! I’m so happy!”

“So your little boyfriend gets to take Grapehead’s place?” Bakugou sneered as he snatched the syllabus up off of his own desk.

“Don’t tell me you got stuck with this jerk _again_,” Hitoshi groaned, looking to see the explosive boy glaring. “You have the worst luck!”

“Well, you have the best luck, Shinsou!” the pink girl said cheerfully. “Welcome to Class 1-A!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apropos of nothing: This has been bothering me for a while...What the heck is up with Toga’s power? How does  
drinking someone’s blood allow her to morph her _clothes_?? I mean, this is seriously  
missing out on some comedy gold! I want to see her turn into Todoroki or Midoriya or someone,  
but they’re wearing her normal schoolgirl outfit! I feel this is unfair. Just sayin’.  



	8. Long Overdue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izuku and Bakugou have a face off in Battle Training, and they both learn something from it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Labor Day weekend gave me a little extra time for writing, so I'm getting this up a tad early. I'm TRYING to post every Thursday or so, but don't want to make any promises that this will be a permanent trend, just in case that changes. At any rate, I hope you enjoy it!

SHGTUT - Chapter Eight - Long Overdue

Izuku was almost as happy as Hitoshi upon finding out that his friend had made it into the hero course by default. Izuku introduced him to the others, even though none of them had really gotten a chance to talk enough to get to know each other. A round of introductions followed, with Izuku making mental notes about their quirks from what he’d observed during the assessment earlier. Everyone seemed to accept Hitoshi easily, and the atmosphere was easy as they left for the day. The only rough spot was when Izuku had been about to introduce himself, and Uraraka had piped up.

“I know! You’re _Deku_, right?”

Bakugou almost choked, then burst out laughing raucously. “That’s right, Round Face! He’s a deku, all right!”

Izuku rolled his eyes. “My name is Izuku. Kach--Bakugou just calls me Deku to try to insult me.”

“Asshole.” Hitoshi said quietly, though a couple of the kids closest to him smirked.

“Name calling? At this age?” Iida said with a firm air-chop. “Outrageous!”

“He’s been calling me that since we were five,” Izuku said, “but he apparently never grew out of it.”

“Well, I think it has a real _you can do it!_ kind of vibe. It’d be a great hero name!” Uraraka said cheerfully. “But I’m sorry if I offended you. I didn’t know that it was an insult.”

“Don’t worry about it, that name can’t hurt me anymore,” Izuku said kindly. 

Bakugou just sneered and shoved past him to walk out of the room.

The class dispersed soon after, and Hitoshi and Izuku walked out of the school together, super excited to go tell Hitoshi’s parents the good news.

“You guys! You guys! Wait up!” Uraraka was jogging toward them, waving.

They stopped and waited for her, and they all walked to the station together, though they caught different trains.

“She’s really cute,” Hitoshi said as Uraraka waved goodbye and boarded her train.

“She is, isn’t she?” Izuku agreed, “She’s really friendly, too! And her quirk is amazing!”  
They continued to talk about their day, and Izuku monologued for a good twenty minutes about all of the quirks he’d observed in class before Hitoshi had joined them. 

In the end, Hitoshi decided to tell his parents the good news by himself, since they didn’t get home from work until a little later, and Izuku hurried home on his own, feeling lighter than he had since the entrance exams.

Gran had been very surprised to hear the news about Hitoshi’s advancement, but had been happy for both him and Izuku. “It must have been because it was the first day. After a week in that class, a newcomer would be pretty far behind.”

“A week! What are they going to teach us that could make it so hard to catch up?” Izuku didn’t know if he was excited, or terrified.

“You’ll find out, kid,” Gran said with a chuckle. “Three years ain’t that long in the scheme of things; there’s a lot of work ahead of you, and they’ve got precious little time to cram it all in.”

The next morning, Izuku and Hitoshi were both yawning widely on their train ride to school, having been on the phone with each other until very late. The time before homeroom was a little livelier than it had been the day before, when no one knew anything about each other. The assessment they’d gone through had been an unexpected ice breaker, the sudden addition of Shinsou to the class had spurred further introductions. As soon as the door slid open to reveal Aizawa, though, every student went still and quiet, waiting for him to begin class.

The first half of the morning was dedicated to normal academics like English and history, then there was lunch in the cafeteria, where Izuku found comfort in Lunch Rush’s cooking, since he’d lived off of it for a month or so while he and Gran were learning to fend for themselves around the house. Then it was back to class, where Aizawa was waiting for them. Once they had all taken their seats, Aizawa looked around at all of them and announced, “Today, you'll be having Basic Hero Training with--”

“**Sorry I’m late, little listeners! I had to stop and pick up a few supplies!**” Everyone recognized the familiar tall blond hair and Very Loud Voice by now.

“Present Mic,” Aizawa finished, with an air of long-suffering. “I’ll be there to supervise, as well, but he’ll be handling the lesson. Your Basic Hero Training classes will be taught by a variety of pro heroes over the course of the school year, so you all get a well-rounded curriculum with different aspects of hero work and experiences with varying quirks.”

Everyone was on the edge of their seats, waiting to hear more. This was the real deal! What they’d enrolled at Yuuei for! Present Mic stepped forward and announced, “**And you’ll be starting off with ME! Today’s lesson will be battle training!**

“Yes! Finally!” Bakugou said loudly, looking positively gleeful. “A chance to fight!”

“**Right you are! But first, you’ll need to change!**” With a small remote control in his hand, he pressed the button on it. From the wall, a hiss of pneumatic springs issued from the wall, and vertical panels slid out to reveal numbered cases nestled inside. “**With the designs you submitted with your clothing allowance, our design team has used your request forms to create your hero costumes! Find your number and get changed! We’ll meet at training ground beta once you’re ready! Shinsou, you’ll have to wait for your costume, since you just joined us yesterday. You’ll just wear your gym clothes, for now.”**

Everyone scrambled to get their cases. Hitoshi waited for Izuku, and walked with him to the locker rooms, where everyone opened their cases to examine what the designers had come up with for them.

“It looks just like your sketch,” Hitoshi said approvingly. “The color is perfect; I was afraid you were going to end up looking like a big piece of broccoli or something, with all that green.” 

“Ha. Ha,” Izuku said with an eye roll. He really was pleased with the result as he changed into his suit and pulled the hood/mask combo up over his head. It was quite a bit heavier than he expected, but he had asked for super resilient material that would protect him from knives, bullets, etc. during battles. As heavy as it was, it allowed for easy movement and they even gave him an upgraded pair of his favored red hightops, that had thicker, deeper tread. The red elbow and knee pads and utility belt helped tie the whole look together.

Gran had refused to help him design this costume, saying it was a personal thing that he should take care to think about, since it would represent the image people had of him. He’d suggested that a utility belt or hidden pockets might be useful, but other than that, he’d left Izuku and Hitosi to work it out on their own.

“I wonder how long it’ll take them to put yours together,” Izuku said as he pulled on his gloves.

Hitoshi shrugged. “It’s not like I need one right away. Aside from the voice amplifier I asked for, it wouldn’t really help me in a fight.”

“But you’d look cool,” Izuku pointed out. 

Hitoshi just laughed at that, and motioned for Izuku to hurry up. Shutting their lockers at the same time, they turned to find that they were the last ones in the locker room. They took off at a jog after the retreating backs of the others. When they were all gathered around, Hitoshi smacked Izuku’s arm and nodded his head toward the girls.

“Whoa! Everyone looks so cool!” Izuku said. 

It was true, though Jiro just looked like she was wearing normal street clothes, for the most part. Yaoyorozu’s was definitely very revealing; Izuku wondered if it was the best design for a quirk like hers, and made a mental not to ask her about the specifics later. Uraraka looked slightly embarrassed.

“I think I should have been a little more specific about what I wanted,” Uraraka said self consciously. “I didn’t think they’d make it this...tight.”

“What are you talking about? You look great!” Hitoshi told her. “Doesn’t she, Zu?”

“What? Oh! Yes! It’s really practical, too! You’ll be able to move around really easily. It’s perfect!”

She blushed at that, and started talking about how good all the others looked.

“Why does your suit have bunny ears, Midoriya?” Uraraka asked curiously.

Hitoshi cracked up while Izuku flailed. “They’re not ears,” Hitoshi explained. “They’re a homage to All Might’s hair spikes. See? The mouth guard is supposed to resemble a smile.”

“Oooh! That’s so cool! Was he your favorite hero?” Uraraka asked Izuku, who was still blushing under his mask.

“He- He still is. When he died, I was… devastated, really. I wanted a way to pay tribute to him and remind myself of the kid of hero I want to become.” Izuku explained with a nervous laugh tacked onto the end. “But everyone else looks so much more impressive!”

“What’s going on with that Todoroki kid, though?” Hitoshi asked, nodding in the direction Izuku was already stealing glances at. “He looks kinda like an ice cyborg, or something. What’s his quirk, again?”

They all looked over at the boy in question, who wasn’t looking in their direction, but over at Aizawa and Present Mic, who were conferring about something. Todoroki was dressed all in white, with ice encrusting the half of his body that had red hair and the facial scar. His left eye was covered by some sort of round lens or mechanism that glowed and gave the impression of something less than human under the ice.

“It’s called _Half Hot-Half Cold_,” Izuku supplied. “But he has the half that gets hot all covered in ice. Maybe it gets so hot that he needs to constantly cool down? I don’t know enough about it to make an educated guess. It certainly looks intimidating, especially with that red glowing eye.”

“I think it looks kinda dumb,” Hitoshi said with a quieter voice than he would normally use, so as not to be overheard. He wasn’t trying to pick on the other boy, after all. “If the hot half was _that_ hot, there would be steam rising off of him, and he’d be dripping water, wouldn’t he?”

“I guess. Just don’t know why he’d cover himself like that. I mean, he’s practically perfect already.” Izuku said, still staring.

Hitoshi raised an eyebrow. “Uh? Okay…”

Izuku blushed a bit when he noticed that Hitoshi was looking at him strangely.

“I mean, in a purely aesthetic sense, wouldn’t his popularity be higher if he didn’t cover up like that. I mean...don’t you think he’s good looking?” Izuku defended his comment, sounding a bit like he was struggling to make an excuse. 

Ashido, who was standing nearby in a very eye-catching purple and aqua bodysuit with a white fur collar and white mask heard Izuku’s question and nodded enthusiastically. “He’s the prettiest boy in class, for sure. All the girls think so. No offense!”

“See?” Izuku said to Hitoshi. He knew he was pretty plain looking over all, so no offense was taken on his part.

“I guess,” Hitoshi said with a shrug.

Aizawa and Present Mic seemed to have finished with their discussion and were now calling the students to attention. 

“**Listen up! Most of you have seen heroes fighting villains, either in person or on the news, right?**”

The crowd of kids all nodded when he paused.

“**The battles that get recorded for the news, or that you see on the street are just that - on the street! Statistically speaking, though, most hero fights take place indoors. The most insidious of villains like to stay hidden and make their moves in secrecy. You’ll have to be able to fight in close quarters, keeping in mind that there may be civilians nearby and the building’s integrity needs to be kept in tact!**”

Izuku visibly flinched at his words, thinking instantly of his mother. Hitoshi put a hand on his shoulder, keeping him grounded while they listened to the instructions.

“**SO! For this training, you’ll be divided into pairs, chosen by a random drawing!**”

“Isn’t there a better way to decide that? By compatibility of quirks or relative--” Iida began.

“Not if you think about it,” Izuku said, only a slight hitch in his voice. “In the field, you could be forced to work with anyone, and heroes from different agencies could be there, and you’ll need to collaborate with them. You won’t always get to choose who you work with.”

“I see,” Iida said, “That does make sense.”

Iida bowed to his teachers and apologized for doubting their wisdom. Izuku was impressed with his armor - it made him resemble a futuristic knight.

“**No problem! Now! We’ve divided the pairs into hero teams and villain teams, I will draw one of each to face off against each other at random! The villains will have five minutes to enter the chosen building and hide the nuclear weapon they want to launch. After that time, the heroes will be allowed to enter the building. The villains job is to defend the payload. They win if they can capture the heroes, or defend the missile until time runs out. The heroes win if they can secure the weapon by touching it, or capture the villains before the fifteen minute time limit is reached. You’ll each be issued a roll of capture tape! If you can get his wrapped around your opponent, they are out of the fight, and cannot reenter it. ANY QUESTIONS?**”

“What will the rest of us be doing while the others are taking their turns?” Sato asked.

“**Hopefully, you’ll be discussing strategy with your partner before your own turn! Once you finish, you’ll be heading into the control room to wait, and you can watch any remaining pairs battle. Eraserhead will be showing you all the footage from all the fights over the coming class periods so that you can critique yourselves and get advice!**” Present Mic said cheerfully. **”Get ready! Team A is Todoroki Shouto and MIdoriya Izuku!”**

Midodriya’s heart jumped at the announcement. Knowing who he’d be working with made the battle all that much more real. His mind started swirling with possible strategies depending on whether they were placed on the hero team or the villain team. He only half heard Present Mic announce the other pairings until Hitoshi’s name was called as being paired with Tokoyami, who he remembered was the kid with the bird head, and an avian like ‘shadow’ that did his bidding, as far as he could tell. Bakugou was paired with Jiro, the girl with long earlobes that ended in AUX plugs. 

“Hey.” Izuku actually startled when Todoroki appeared behind him and spoke. “We’re working together.”

“Oh! Ah! Yes! Sorry about that, I didn’t see you,” Izuku said nervously. “Ice to meet--I mean nice to meet you! Sorry. I guess I’m jumpy. I get like this before a competition, sometimes.”

He cringed inwardly had the terrible pun he’d just let slip. Thankfully the other boy didn’t seem to notice it.

“You’ve fought before?” Todoroki asked with a tilt of his head. He didn’t have a lot of inflection in his voice, or expression on his face, so he was kind of hard to read.

“I’ve been in boxing matches and martial arts competitions, before. Nothing high stakes, though,” Izuku said, calming down, now that the conversation was turning to something he was fairly confident about. “How about you?”

“I’ve been forced to train since the first day my quirk manifested,” Todoroki said.

“Forced? Is it because your quirk is so strong you had to learn to control it?” Izuku asked, wondering if Todoroki was a kindred spirit.

“Something like that.” Todoroki’s tone didn’t change, but somehow Izuku got the feeling that the subject was closed to further discussion.

“Alright, class,” Aizawa announced as the other teacher walked off down the street two builldings away from them, “Once Present Mic gets to the control room, across the street from the building you’ll be in, I’ll draw the lots that will decide who will face off. The villain team will enter the building on my mark. You’ll each be given an ear radio so you can talk to your partners, and a roll of capture tape.”

Aizawa also had an ear radio, but his was simply resting on his shoulder on his capture weapon. Before Izuku could ask why, Present Mic’s voice could be heard coming through it, clear enough for bystanders to hear. **_”Eraserhead, proceed with the drawing!_**

Ah. That would explain it. It seemed that Present Mic didn’t always realize his volume was turned up.

“First teams to face off will be:” Eraserhead reached into two boxes, one black, one white, at the same time. “Team A as the villains and Team D as the heroes. Midoriya and Todoroki, head into the building and hide the weapon. Bakugou and Jiro will be sent in to try to defeat you in five minutes.”

Izuku thought his heart might’ve stopped for a moment when he heard that Bakugou would be coming after him, but he quashed his panic and started to follow Todoroki toward the building. 

“You got this, Zu,” Hotoshi said from behind him. 

Izuku turned to share a quick fist bump. “You, too. See you later!”

He jogged to catch up with Todoroki and they entered the front door to find a ten foot tall metal missile casing standing in the entryway. Izuku knocked on it to make sure it was hollow, and was satisfied with the deep reverberation he heard echo back.

“I’ll block the doors and windows.” Todoroki didn’t even wait for acknowledgement before placing his hand on the door and sending ice speeding from the point of contact down the hallways on either side and encrusting everything with a few millimeters worth. 

“Wow! That’s impressive! It will serve not only to make it hard to get in, but the less Bakugou sweats, the better,” Izuku praised. “How precise can you be?”

“I can’t make ice sculptures or anything, but basic barriers are no problem.” Todoroki supplied. “Where should we hide the weapon?”

“I think the higher, the better,” Izuku suggested, crouching and picking up the ‘nuclear weapon’. “Could you guide me around the corners on the stairs?”

In short order, they were climbing to the fifth floor, but rapidly running out of time. As they climbed, Izuku took the opportunity to fill Todoroki in on a few things. Todoroki took the opportunity to ice the stairs as they climbed each flight, turning them into downward slides.

“Bakugou has an explosion quirk; his hands secrete an explosive sweat like nitroglycerin that he can ignite and detonate. I don’t know how long your ice can hold him off, so I think it might be best if I leave you to defend the weapon, and I’ll keep him too busy to look for it. We have a history, and I’m pretty sure he’s going to try to fight me, regardless. Do you know anything about Jiro’s quirk?”

“Not much,” Todoroki said, guiding the nosecone of the missle around the last turn. “Something to do with hearing. I think she uses the jacks on her earlobes to plug into stuff, so she can hear what’s going on in other places.”

Izuku moved into the large space and set the weapon down in the far corner. There were various barrels, boards and other construction-like equipment scattered around, but nothing that seemed very useable.

“Can you use your ice to make as thick a wall as you can around the missile? That way, even if they get in here, they’ll have to blast through to get to it, giving you time to act.”

Todoroki nodded. “Good thinking.” He put out his right hand and foot and put a meter-thick prison around the payload, floor to ceiling.

“Time’s almost up; heroes will be coming in, soon. Are you okay with the plan of my handling Bakugou? That might leave you to deal with Jiro, and we don’t know much about her abilities.” Izuku asked, making sure they were on the same page.

Just then, there was the sound of an explosion and Izuku looked to Todoroki in anticipation. The other boy nodded, and Izuku gave him and thumbs up sign before heading out. He could see his breath on the frigid air as he slid down the iced stairs by simply sitting on it like a playground slide when he found his new shoes were skid resistant. It didn’t take him long to run into the other team, who seemed to be arguing at the bottom of the stairs on the first floor. As he stood on the landing of the second floor, he could hear Bakugou’s angry growl, “I don’t care what you want to do, just leave Deku to me.”

“Well, there you go. Knock yourself out,” Jiro said, pointing straight at Izuku. She had her earlobe plugged into the wall without ice on it, but released it when she saw him. She stood and moved back. “I’m going to complete our mission, dumbass. I’m not gonna lose because of your pissing match.”

Bakugou launched himself up the stairwell with the help of his explosions to propel him upward without having to find purchase on the ice. Izuku moved to a clearer area for the coming fight, readying himself for the attack he knew was imminent.

“You finally gonna fight me, Deku?” 

Bakugou all but spat the words in his anger, which seemed over the top to Izuku. He didn’t know why his former friend was still holding a grudge after all these years, but if he wanted a fight, he’d get one.

“No, I thought we’d have tea and reminisce about the good old days,” Izuku said, standing in a fighting stance. He was grateful for all of the training he’d received since the last time he’d faced his bully, and intended to put it to good use, now.

“Shut up, asshole! You hid your quirk from me all this time, but you’re still just a nobody, and I’m going to prove it by kicking your ass!” 

“Right...because my quirk, or lack of one, is all about _you_.” Izuku shot back with a little venom in his tone. “I thought _I_ was supposed to be the villain in this scenario.”

Bakugou screamed in rage as he flew forward, hands blazing. Izuku was ready, watching for any telegraphed moves, and waited until the right moment to move in close and grab Bakugou by the front of his costume and his upper arm. In a simple move, he used his leg to throw the other boy off balance and threw him to the ground. Either not knowing how to land, or being hampered by the large gauntlets on his arms, Bakugou landed hard on his back and _bounced_ in a way that Izuku knew had to be very painful. Remembering Gran’s advice that any fight with a villain was a fight for your life, he figured the same held true for the villain. When Bakugou got back up in a rage and propelled himself forward in another attack, Izuku took Gran’s advice to heart, and punched him in the throat. He didn’t put any of One for All into the punch, and made an effort to make sure that it only stunned Bakugo, instead of seriously injuring him. The blond choked at the blow, and dropped to his knees, wheezing for a moment. He seemed to decide to start actually thinking about his moves, instead of just flying at him in anger.

“That was a dirty move, Deku!” Bakugo rasped, putting some distance between them.

“I’m the _villain_ in this fight, remember?” Izuku said calmly, keeping his eyes moving for any signs of attack, but not advancing himself. “You’re the one who came up here saying you were going to kick my ass. We aren’t little kids anymore, Kacchan, I won’t be as easy to torment.”

“Fuck you, you useless shit,” Bakugou said, every word sounding like it was being dragged over broken glass. “You were always so annoying, following me around, looking down on me.”

“Looking down on you while you were burning holes in my sleeves or kicking me while I was already down on the ground, or exploding my stuff? Do you _hear_ yourself?” Izuku was beginning to wonder if all of the constant praise for his quirk had made Bakugou delusional. 

Izuku had heard nothing from Todoroki over their radios, so he had to assume that he was faring well against Jiro, if she’d even been able to reach him, yet. The longer he could keep his opponent talking, the better their chances of winning this battle.

“All I ever wanted from you was friendship. How many times did _you_ have to go home and have your mom mop up your bloody nose or lip? How many times did _you_ have to treat burns on your own back, so your mom wouldn’t find out how badly you got beaten down that day? How often did _your_ shoes or backpack or money get stolen or tossed in the trash? How many times did _you_ get pushed into puddles or down stairs while your bully and his asshole friends laughed?” Izuku was trying to remain calm, but the memory of his mother’s outrage on his behalf, and the uselessness of her complaints to the school was making him even angrier. “How exactly was that _looking down_ on you?

They were circling each other slowly now, Bakugou’s throat already bruising a sickly purplish green. Izuku was taking slow, measured steps around his opponent, making him turn his whole body if he wanted to keep him in his line of sight. 

“You let all that happen!” Bakugou roared as loudly as his bruised throat would allow. “You couldn’t even be assed to use your stupid quirk to defend yourself! Pretending to be be weak! For what? To make me look bad?”

“And believing that I couldn’t or wouldn’t defend myself against daily attacks was reason enough for you to beat the crap out of me? Seriously? _That_ was what made you look bad. I don’t care what you think. I didn’t get my quirk until I was ten years old, and by then, my mom had already moved me to another school to get me the hell away from _you_. So, if you want to fight, let’s fight. We’ll see which one of us comes out on top.”

At that moment, one of the gauntlets that looked like grenades on Bakugou’s arms flared red and a quiet tone sounded. “Ha! I knew you were a dumbass! While you’re over there crying about how sad you are about being a weak little nobody, I’ve been waiting for this!” He lifted his arm and held it straight out in front of him. He slid back a piece of his gauntlet to reveal what appeared to be a grenade pin. “This has been storing my sweat up so I can make bigger explosions!”

**“Bakugou! Stand down!”** came Present Mic’s voice in their ear pieces. It made Izuku flinch at the volume right next to his eardrum, but the other boy held steady, finger through the loop of the pin. “**A large explosion in that space could seriously injure or kill him!**”

“Not if he dodges with his _so-strong-I-couldn’t-handle-it-till-I-was-ten_ quirk!” Bakugou growled, then pulled the pin with no hesitation. 

Izuku hadn’t honestly expected Bakugou to pull the pin after a direct order from a teacher. He didn’t believe he’d risk the structural integrity of the building. He hesitated a moment too long, and the explosion caught engulfed him as he was attempting to jump up and flip above the brunt of it. Fire and smoke swallowed him and he misjudged the strength of his jump as the force of the blow pushed him. His back hit the ceiling with enough impact to break the ceiling tiles, which rained down around him when he hit the floor. His mask had slipped up and back, exposing his head and face, leaving only his jaw guard to protect him. Luckily, he knew how to do a breakfall, and wasn’t seriously hurt from the impact coming down, but he could smell singed hair, and was sure his face looked sunburned - it sure felt like it.

Bakugou then moved in a took a page out of Izuku’s book of dirty fighting, kicking him hard in the back a couple of times, probably bruising his kidney. There was suddenly a breeze in the room, and Izuku turned his head to see a portion of the outer wall of the building had been blown away, and a gaping hole showed the building next door. Izuku saw red at the recklessness of the so-called hero he was facing off against. In a real life situation, there could have been any number of people on the street below, who could have been killed by falling chunks of brick and glass.

Izuku was so incensed that he barely registered Present Mic’s voice telling them that Jiro had been removed from the battle. He stood, eyes glinting, and glared at Bakugou through his mask. “I thought you wanted to be a hero! Is this what a hero does? Is this what a hero is?”

For the first time in the battle, Izuku moved first. He was a blur that Bakugou tried to track, but couldn’t quite manage it, swinging wide with small explosions popping in his palm as he tried to hit what he couldn’t see by blind luck. In an instant, his feet were swept out from under him, and he landed face down on the ground. His arm was jerked behind him, and forced upward toward his middle back, and capture tape had been wrapped around him.

“**_VILLAIN TEAM WINS!_**” Present Mic’s voice sounded over a loudspeaker in the ceiling somewhere, heard in every corner of the building (and possibly back at the main school building, as well).

“DAMMIT!” Bakugou shouted angrily, hands still popping and crackling. “This isn’t over yet, you bastard! I’m gonna…”

What he was going to do or say next, Izuku never found out. Before Bakugou could break free or get his revenge or whatever, Aizawa appeared and silenced him with his capture weapon, using his quirk to cancel out the explosions building in the boy’s palms. “It _is_ over. When I release you, you’ll remove your gauntlets and move to the control room for first aid.”

Bakugou finally stopped struggling and did as he was told. On his way, he glared daggers at Izuku, but didn’t dare say or do anything as he left. 

“Good work, Midoriya. Are you injured?” Aizawa asked, his capture weapon falling back to his shoulders. 

“Not really. I probably have a few first degree burns, and some bruises, but nothing major.” Izuku answered, taking stock of himself now that the danger had passed. He’d probably be peeing blood later, after getting kicked in the kidney. He made a mental note to drop in and see Recovery Girl before going home.

“Good. Have you calmed down?” His teacher eyed him critically, as though he knew about his past with Bakugou, and possibly other things not in his student file.

“Yes. I’m still--I’m angry, but I won’t lose my temper,” he said firmly. He hadn’t realized until this point that he was still breathing heavily, and his jaw was clenched. “Bakugou and I have sort of a bad relationship, I guess you’d say.”

Aizawa raised his eyebrows at that. “Sort of.” It wasn’t a question.

Izuku scratched the back of his head and winced when he felt crispy flakes come off into his hand. He was going to need to get his hair fixed, for sure. Todoroki appeared in the doorway at that point, and nodded to them. “I melted all the ice.”

“Good work,” Aizawa said, “But I think we’re going to need to switch buildings for the next test. There’s a big hole in this one.”

“Nice job,” Izuku told his partner, “I can’t wait to hear how your fight with Jiro went,”

“It wasn’t that exciting, really. I just threw her out the window.” Todoroki said with a completely straight face and serious tone as they walked out of the building..

When Izuku stopped in his tracks and looked like he might have a panic attack, Todoroki turned back and added, “She’s fine. I made a slide, first.”

“Say that first! You had me worried for minute, there!” Izuku said with a weak smile. “Your quirk is really strong, and you’re a quick thinker!”

“Not really. My original plan was to just freeze them both in a big block of ice, but we ended up facing off with people who could counter that.” 

Todoroki seemed awfully blase about freezing people in ice, and Izuku looked at him worriedly. “If you’d done that, they might have suffocated,” he pointed out. “Even if you’d left their heads out of it, they might not be able to get air if their chests can’t move.”

Todoroki seemed to consider this as they followed Aizawa’s directions to the control room. “You might have a point. I’ll have to work something out for that. I’m not used to working as part of a team.”

The control room was dimly lit by several monitors that showed every aspect the inside of the building. Present Mic must have switched the camera views to a different building, because there were no holes in the walls of the one they were currently seeing on screen. The weapon had either already been moved to the new building, or a replica was waiting in the entryway of the new one. While they watched, the other teams each took their turns, with varying levels of success for each one. 

Izuku watched with interest, making mental notes, and swearing to put a small notebook and pen in his utility belt at the first chance he got. Finally the last group faced off, and Hitoshi entered the building with Tokoyami as a hero team duo against Sero and Koda. Izuku wasn’t sure what Koda’s quirk was, but Sero shot thick tape from his elbows, and it was easy to see how useful a quirk like that could be in apprehending villains. Strangely enough, there wasn’t much of a fight; the end was somewhat anticlimactic

The villain team had chosen to stay together and wait for the hero team to find them, which didn’t take too long. Once the hero team entered the room, Sero used his tape to wrap up Shinsou, who fell heavily to the ground. A swarm of rats and mice started entering the room through any entry they could find, and ran around chaotically, but didn’t bite at all. There was no sound, but it was obvious that Hitoshi was talking to Sero, and then Sero’s eyes went blank and he used his tape to bind Koda. The rodents immediately turned to try chewing through the tape, but it was too late. Black Shadow had gone and used the capture tape on top of the quirk tape while shoo-ing rodents aside, effectively removing Koda from the fight. At that point, it was simply a matter of Hitoshi telling Sero to stand still while Tokoyami taped him up, and cut Hitoshi freel. Sero was released from Hitoshi’s hold, and was stunned to find out what he’d done. 

Once the last two pairs entered the control room, they were told to go back to the locker room and change back into their uniforms. Any injuries were to go to Recovery Girl and get treated. Present Mic herded them all out following them out of Training Ground Beta to make sure none of them got lost or sidetracked. Aizawa asked Midoriya and Bakugou to stay back for a word, so the others went ahead without them.

“Midoriya, Present Mic said you took a couple of kicks to the kidney.” Aizawa said with bland tone. “You didn’t mention that when I asked if you were alright.” 

“Oh. No, because it isn’t that big a deal. I was going to go see Recovery Girl before going home, but I didn’t want to miss watching everyone’s fights!” Izuku admitted with a nervous laugh.

“Your health and safety come first. You’re going to see the fights, anyway, in class. Go and get looked at. _Right now_.”

Izuku nodded and hurried out the door, but paused in the hallway when he heard Aizawa address Bakugou.

“Care to tell me what that was all about, back there?”

“What _what_ was all about?” Bakugou asked defiantly. “You told us to fight, we fought.”

Eraserhead’s sign could be heard all the way in the hallway. “Yes. You fought. However, you were supposed to be on the hero team. Despite this, you not only blew a hole in a building and rained debris down on an outside road and sidewalk, you continued to try to attack Midoriya after the fight had ended. Tell me: what is it that you want to learn here at this school?”

“To be a hero,” Bakugou growled, not liking being called out on his bad behavior (it wasn’t something he was used to). “Why else would I be here?”

“Yes, but _why_ do you want to be a hero?” Aizawa persisted.

Izuku nodded in approval at this question from where he was hiding in the hallway. He had wondered the same for a long time, since Bakugou didn’t seem to like anyone but himself very much.

“So I can be the best, and everyone will know I’m the greatest there ever was!” Bakugou actually sounded enthusiastic about it, voicing his lifelong dream of being number one, and better than even All Might, some day.

“Let me tell you something, Bakugou. You may have a strong quirk. You may save hundreds of people and take down dozens of villains and even become number one some day, but none of that will make you a hero. Heroism is about something you don’t seem to know anything about: selflessness. An actual desire to help others for the sake of helping them or making them safe or improving their lives with no thought of the reward that might come with it.”

“Nobody does something for nothing,” Bakugou said, voice still rough. “Every kid here wants recognition or money or popularity. They ain’t here outta the goodness of their hearts.”

“I think you might be surprised,” Aizawa told him. “Midoriya scored the highest ever on rescue points during the exam, sacrificing other points to make sure the other examinees were safe. But in any case, you have some thinking to do. If all you want is to show off your quirk and be popular, find another job. Go into acting or become an idol. Drop out now and give your space to someone who wants more than that. Midoriya knows the cost that might have to be paid when heroes behave as recklessly as you did today. His mother paid that price.”

“Auntie?” Bakugou’s tone changed, suddenly uncertain.

“A hero’s reckless desire to show off overrode her common sense, and she kicked a giant villain onto an occupied building. The one where Midoriya Inko worked.” Aizawa said flatly. “What if civilians had been on the street below when you blew out that wall, earlier?”

Izuku didn’t wait to hear more. He crept down the hall and out of the building as quietly as he could, wiping his tears on his sleeve. Once he hit the street, he ran, pushing himself through the pain of jarring his body while freshly bruised in an effort to distance himself from the pain of his memory of his mother’s death. He skipped the locker room and went straight to Recovery Girl, who treated him quickly and let him lie down for a few minutes to compose himself. He was grateful that she didn’t ask questions about why he was so upset.

While his body felt drained and a bit week after healing, his mind was in turmoil. He was angry at Bakugou for having such a frivolous reason for wanting to be a hero; angry that he hadn’t realized how shallow the other boy was. As a small child, he’d always admired Bakugou and his amazing quirk, and never doubted that he would be a great hero one day. He’d been so envious, even when Bakugou and his cronies would pick on him, even when they called him names and beaten him up. He’d believed that at some point, Bakugou would figure out it was the wrong way to behave, and turn into that shining example of goodness and heroism. Kacchan had wanted to be like All Might, which meant that he wanted to_ help _people. Right? Apparently not. Apparently, what Kacchan had loved about All Might was that people had admired the greatest hero on Earth, and he wanted a share of that admiration, too. He had no idea that the reason that All Might had been so beloved was because he was a _good_ person, and a symbol to aspire to. Now? All Izuku felt for Bakugou was pity.


	9. Criticism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The class reviews the battle training footage and picks a class rep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for all of your kind words and comments! I love each and every Kudos I get! Also. thanks for putting up with any errors I miss - I am my own beta reader, and I miss things, sometimes.

Hitoshi found Izuku in the infirmary after school. His green curls were currently leaving little charred specs all over the neat white pillow under his head, where Izuku had dozed off. He set both of their bags on the floor before going to shake his friend awake.

“Zu. School’s over,” Hitoshi said, only to get no response. How much healing had he needed? “Zu! Wake up!”

Recovery Girl walked in from her supply closet at that point and saw the situation. She merely out two fingers to her lips and emitted and shrieking whistle that had the sleeping boy sitting upright and wide awake as if a fire alarm had gone off. Hitoshi laughed and saluted Recovery Girl. 

“How long have I been out?” Izuku asked as his heart settled into a normal rhythm.

“Only about thirty minutes, dear,” the old lady told him cheerfully. “Now go ahead and head home. Don’t be alarmed if you see any blood in your urine the next time you use the toilet; that was some nasty bruising you had, and while the kidney is healed, there might still be some blood from earlier.”

“What about your kidney?” Hitoshi asked with worry evident in his tone.

“It’s no biggie,” Izuku told him, standing up and stretching. “I took a couple of kicks to the back. You’ll be able to see it tomorrow in class, when they show my fight. It’s happened before during my training.” He picked up his school bag from the floor. “Let’s go get my uniform from the locker room.”

“Just a couple of kicks to your back, resulting in kidney damage that might make you piss blood?” Hitoshi didn’t sound at all convinced that it was not, in fact, a big deal.

“Yep,” Izuku replied, waving off his concern. “Your battle was amazing, by the way! There wasn’t any sound, so most of the kids didn’t know what was going on until I told them what your quirk was.”

“How did they react to that?” Hitoshi asked with trepidation. He had never lost his insecurity about being shunned for his quirk, and even now felt dread pooling in his gut. “They didn’t say anything about it in the locker room.” Not that he’d hung around, long.

“They said it was kinda creepy, but _totally_ useful! One of the guys said he wished he had a quirk like it!” Izuku told him honestly. “One or two were a bit concerned about the ethics of using a quirk like that, but no one was too freaked out. Once they see how versatile it can be, they’re going to be so jealous! It’s a good thing you’re not scared of rats, though! What was _that_ all about?”

They continued on to retrieve Izuku’s uniform, then headed home. Feeling refreshed after the short nap he’d had, Izuku cooked dinner while he told Gran about his day, not leaving out any details.

“You throat punched him, eh?” Gran said with a smug smirk. “Can’t say I blame you. Good job holding back on that one; at even fifteen percent, One For All could’ve easily crushed his windpipe.”

Izuku nodded while he sauteed onions. “I was half expecting Aizawa or Present Mic to yell at me for it, to be honest. I didn’t hit him hard enough to do more than bruise.”

“You said your partner threw one of the villain team out the window? HA!” he seemed highly amused by that. “I guess it’s no surprise, if he’s Endeavor’s kid.”

“He’s what?” Izuku paused in his cooking to stare blankly at Gran. “You’re kidding! He’s got an ice quirk, though!”

“I could be wrong, I guess,” Gran shrugged. “I just know his name’s Todoroki and he has a kid about your age that he’s always braggin’ about when he dragged him out to hero events and paraded him around like a trophy when he was just a tot. I’m surprised they didn’t plaster pictures all over the tabloids about it.”

“He hasn’t said anything about it, so far,” Izuku said. “Maybe he doesn’t want anyone to know?”

They talked about Hitoshi’s match, and Gran smiled through the tale. “It won’t be so easy for him next time. Once someone knows about his quirk, he loses the element of surprise.” 

“Hmmm. That’s true. But he could be a great underground hero! He’d just have to be careful not to let anyone get away, so they could tell others.”

Gran snorted a laugh at that. “Well, he’s got time to figure that out. That’s what school is for.”

They sat down to dinner, and after a few bites, Gran finally said, “Your hair looks terrible. After dinner, I’ll get out my clippers and fix it up for you.”

Izuku’s eyes went wide with fear. As much as he loved Gran, he’d never known him to cut hair before. “Ah! That’s okay, Gran! I’ll just stop by a salon or barber shop tomorrow after school!”

“Ah, quit bein’ a sissy. I’m not gonna scalp you. It’s time that mop of yours got taken down a bit, anyway.” Gran said firmly.

Izuku knew there was no getting out of it, and finished his dinner with a feeling of uneasiness. He took his time doing the dishes, but Gran appeared all too soon carrying a towel, clippers and scissors. He pulled out a kitchen chair and simply said, “Sit.”

Izuku sat. His shoulders were tense as the towel was draped around them, and Gran got to work. Trying not to flinch every time Gran made a move, Izuku couldn’t help the whimper that escaped him as he heard the buzz of clippers near his ear. Gran merely gave a _harrumph_ as he worked. He turned Izuku’s head this way and that while he combed, clipped and cut, and finally declared the job finished. He carefully removed the towel to be shaken out in the yard before washing. 

“Go ahead and take a look before you give yourself heart failure,” Gran told him gruffly. “I’ll sweep up here.”

Izuku shot out of his chair so quickly, Gran wondered if he was seeing an after image in his wake. He headed straight for the bathroom and gasped at his reflection. He looked...good! Trembling with relief, he got a hand mirror and checked it from all angles, noting that Gran had done an expert job with a low faded undercut, leaving the top just long enough for it to curl without being overly wild. He almost couldn’t believe it! Maybe he should have let Kacchan set off an explosion in his face, before! He whipped out his phone and took a quick selfie to send off to Hitoshi before getting washed up and getting in the bath. The day had been a difficult one in many ways, but he was satisfied overall with how it had gone. Yuuei was turning out to be very interesting right off the bat. As he soaked in the hot water, he thought about all of the new entries he wanted to make in his notebook about his classmates.

When he was finally dressed for bed, it occurred to him that he hadn’t thanked Gran for cutting his hair, and went to find him. I didn’t expect to find him kneeling in front of the altar for his parents, lighting an incense stick and talking softly to their pictures. He couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it seemed like a private moment, so he retreated to his room. Where would he be now, if it wasn’t for Gran? Not just with One For All, but physically? With his mother gone, he had no other family and would probably have ended up in an orphanage, like Shinsou had before he’d landed in his current foster home. Would he still be friends with HItoshi, or would they have been separated? Would he have been allowed to try out for Yuuei? Would he have succeeded? He was grateful beyond words that he hadn’t had to find out, and determined to make Gran proud.

He got out his notebook, and before turning to a fresh page to start a new entry, he flipped to the page on Gran Torino and added a little note in the only space left. “Gives great haircuts.”

Satisfied, he turned to a clean sheet and started to sketch Todoroki and list what he knew about his quirk. He took a little extra time sketching his normal appearance, trying to get the details just right. He made a second drawing on the facing page of him in his hero costume. He wasn’t quite satisfied with his work, and kept erasing and redrawing, to the point that the paper was getting thin. He wondered again why Todoroki seemed to focus so much on the ice side of his quirk; if he could melt all that ice today that quickly, the hot side had to be pretty impressive, too.

Gran stuck his head in to say goodnight, and Izuku looked up from his entry on Jiro to grin at him. “Good night! Thanks for cutting my hair! It looks awesome!”

“It should, I was a barber for a few years after I retired from hero work, after all,” Gran told him with a wink.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Izuku asked in dismay. 

“It woulda’ ruined the fun of watchin’ ya’ squirm.”

Izuku’s mouth dropped open, and Gran barked out a laugh. “Don’t stay up too late, kid.”

His phone pinged then, with a message from Hitoshi about his hair. They chatted through text for a while, then Izuku worked on his homework: an essay about what he felt he could have done better in that day’s battle. He fell asleep with this pen in his hand twice before admitting defeat and going to bed.

Hero Basic Training the next day had them sitting in the dark much of the time, watching replays of the battles from the previous day. This would take more than one day, since each side often had two battles going on simultaneously. They ended up watching on a split screen for some of it, then once for each side, so everyone could take in the details of each fight on a proper timeline. Since Midoriya and Todoroki’s fight had been first, theirs was the first they watched. It was interesting to watch from the point of view of an outsider, yet still know what was going to happen.

What Izuku _hadn't_ expected was that there would be _sound_ to go with the video. His classmates were all watching the fight with their mouths hanging open, occasionally staring at either Midoriya or Bakugou as their dirty laundry was aired for all of them. Izuku tried not to make eye contact with any of them, feeling ashamed of how long he’d endured the bullying at the hands of his classmates, growing up. He glanced at Hitoshi, only to see that his eyes were riveted in a glare at the back of Bakugou’s head. If he had laser vision, Bakugou would be smoldering pile of ask beneath his desk by now.

There were many exclamations throughout the fight, and at the end, where Bakugou had tried to continue after being bound in capture tape, the red headed kid had pointed out how “unmanly” it was.

“Nothing about the way he acted was manly,” one of the other boys said.

Bakugou sat hunched at his desk, not rising to the bait (which was actually very impressive restraint for him) .

The footage then covered Jiro’s difficult ascent up the stairs, slipping and falling on the ice the whole way. She wore a determined expression the entire time, while she complained about stubborn assholes who wouldn’t listen to their partners. She abandoned her attempt at stealth, and plugged her earlobe into her boot, and used a heavy bass to vibrate the ice to pieces. It worked adequately to give her some traction, but not near enough to give her the speed she needed. She finally made it to the fifth floor, breathing heavily, and stopped to rest for a moment at the top of the last flight of stairs. Once there, Todoroki simply waited for her to enter the room, grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a shove that sent her skidding to the far wall, arms flailing. The window had already been opened, and Todoroki literally picked the petite girl up, banded her arms around her with ice and tossed her out the window. The camera switched to an outside view, where Jiro could be seen sliding down an ice slide that extended from the fifth floor in a spiral to the ground. When she rolled onto the asphalt of the alley beside the building, she had put her head back and shouted, “I give up!”

Only seconds after that, Present Mic announced that the villains had won, and the scene ended. The lights in the room were turned up, and everyone started talking at once about what they’d just seen.

“Settle down,” Aizawa said. “Who can tell me something the villain team did that was effective?”

Hands shot into the air all over the room. Aizawa nodded to Jiro, first.

“Well, the ice on the stairs was highly effective, for a start,” she said, twirling her earlobe lazily around her finger as she spoke. 

Everyone chuckled at that, and Aizawa nodded to Yaoyorozu.

“Even though they were the first to battle, they had a sound strategy and communicated quickly and efficiently. Midoriya was able to discern what Bakugou was going to do, and was prepared to handle the situation so that Todoroki could guard the weapon.”

“Good. Communication is one of the most important aspects of hero work. Without it, you’re destined to failure in any team.” Aizawa said. “Any other observations for effectiveness?”

“Midoriya has some mad fighting skills!” the red headed one, Kirishima, called out.

“He did a good job stalling Bakugou, so Todoroki only had to worry about one Hero coming after the weapon. He took some damage because Bakagou had enough time to set off his grenade thing, but didn’t let it slow him down.” the frog-like girl, Asui, pointed out. 

“Both of them made a good team. They listened to each other and made sure they were in agreement before enacting their plan,” Iida said with his usual hand gestures.

Izuku had thought that Iida was arrogant and interfering at first, but now he could see that he was just really serious about his education and had a deep respect for Yuuei. Coming from him, his comment was high praise.

“Alright,” Aizawa said, “Now, tell me what the villain team did that wasn’t effective.”

Not as many hands rose into the air, as everyone mentally reviewed the fight.

“He let a personal grudge make him lose his temper,” Hitoshi finally said quietly. “While he used it to his advantage in the end, he allowed his emotions to affect the fight.”

Izuku nodded and looked at Hitoshi. “You’re right.”

“The two of you obviously knew each other before, and not in a good way,” Uraraka said.

“True,” Izuku said. “But that was a long time ago, and I’ve grown a lot since then,” He absently reached over and punched Hitoshi in the arm at the snort his friend gave at the word ‘grown’. “I shouldn’t have let it get under my skin.”

“Izuku’s past relationship with Bakugou made him hesitant to beat him down, like a real villain would have done,” Hitoshi clarified, rubbing his arm. “He could have easily taken him out seconds if he had really tried.”

“Bullshit!” Bakugou erupted. 

At the same time Izuku said, “I’m not so sure about that.”

“There’s no way he could have beat me…” Bakugou began

“But he did,” Todoroki said, head tilted to the side a bit as if confused. “We all just saw him do it.”

The other students all nodded and called out agreements, while Bakugou got redder and redder in the face. “I’ll fight him again right now! Come on, Deku, face me in a fair fight! I’ll wipe the floor with you!”

“Calm down,” Aizawa said. He didn’t even have to raise his voice for everyone to settle into silence immediately. Even Bakugou looked cowed as he crossed his arms over his chest and scowled at everyone. “Shinsou is correct. A villain would have taken full advantage and delivered a finishing blow, instead of monologuing. While the strategy had merit, it lost effectiveness, because it gave his opponent time to come up with and execute an offensive strike. Real villains _do_ do this; they often like to brag or tell a hero exactly why they’re angry enough to commit their crime, but in the end it usually comes back to bite them. Those who control their emotions in a fight have the edge.”

Everyone nodded, and several were taking notes as he spoke.

“Let’s move on to the hero team. What did they do that was effective?”

It took longer for hands raise, not because they were mentally reviewing, but because there was so little to say, The hero team had been a mess from start to finish from what they saw.

“Jiro stayed focused on the goal,” Sero finally said. “Even though her partner was ignoring her suggestions, she did what she could to salvage the situation and went after the missile by herself.”

“Like you said, Bakugou took advantage of Midoriya’s stalling for time to charge up his arm grenade, giving him a chance to make a move to try and defeat him.”

When no other comments were forthcoming, Aizawa nodded and asked, “What can you tell me about what they did wrong?”

All hands shot into the air, even Jiro’s and Bakugou’s. Aizawa nodded at Bakugou.

“I went into it more focused on a personal grudge than in completing the mission, and it all went to shit from there,” he said, looking at his desk, still scowling. “And I ignored Earlobes when she was trying to help.”

Izuku’s eyebrows nearly reached his hairline, he was so surprised. Maybe the talk Aizawa had given him had sunk in? Other students added their observations to Bakugou’s, but were a little kinder than they might have been, if the bombastic boy hadn’t admitted (at least some of) his own mistakes.

“He didn’t take into account that he was setting off an explosion that could injure or kill any civilians nearby,” Izuku added, managing to keep his voice level, if a little more quiet than he normally would. “A villain with a nuke probably wouldn’t care, but it’s a hero’s job to protect people from not only villains, but from their own actions, even during a fight.”

Hitoshi looked a little ill, and Bakugou was hunched over in his seat, looking as miserable as Izuku had ever seen him look.

“That’s true,” Iida said, sounding unnaturally loud to Izuku’s ears. “In fact, only recently there was a hero whose debut caused three civilians to be killed when she knocked down a villain with a gigantification quirk causing him to fall on an occupied office building. If I’m not mistaken, her hero license was suspended for six months and she’s being forced to take remedial training and do community service.”

The students fell silent at this, and Izuku asked to be excused to go to the bathroom. At Aizawa’s understanding nod, he rose and calmly left the room. He went and splashed some cold water on his face, knowing that Hitoshi or Aizawa was probably telling the class about his mother. That was okay; he just didn’t want to be the one to tell them. It was still too soon for him to be able to talk about it directly without being overcome by emotion. He just hoped he hadn’t seemed to obviously upset as he left the room. It had been months since his mother’s death; he felt like he should be able to talk about it with a breakdown at this point. 

“Midoriya Izuku! Shouldn’t you be in class?”

Izuku had just left the bathroom and almost tripped over Principal Nezu in the hallway.

“Yes sir,” Izuku said respectfully. “I just needed a short break. I’m headed back, now.”

“I’ll walk with you!” His voice was cheerful as he fell into step beside his student. “Are you finding your classes difficult, Midoriya? I understand you had battle training yesterday, but I’d heard you’d done well.”

Izuku stole a quick glance at that; this school had hundreds of kids in attendance, and Nezu had heard about how Izuku _in particular_ had done in training? He knew that the principal was a genius, and that he took a special interest in Izuku because of One For All, but how closely was he being watched? Did the principal know about _all_ of the students because he was just that capable of keeping track of it all because of his own quirk, or was Izuku a special case? 

“No, I’m really enjoying the school and the classes,” Izuku told him honestly. “Everyone is so different and interesting! It’s like something out of a dream.”

“Yet, you still needed to step out for a break?” Nezu prompted.

“Ah. Yes. Well, we were analyzing our battles, and in a roundabout way, discussing the need to keep civilians safe; Mt. Lady’s debut came up, and it got to be...awkward.” Izuku hoped this didn’t make him seem to emotionally fragile. “I didn’t want to have to explain about my mother, so I stepped out before it came up. I know that’s kind of running away…”

“Nonsense,” Nezu said crisply, stopping outside the classroom door, which seemed even larger next to the tiny principal. “You don’t owe anyone an explanation. It has nothing to do with weakness. Your loss is still...very fresh, Midoriya. The experience will eventually serve to make you a better hero. I believe it’s already begun to do so.”

“Thank you, sir,” Izuku said with a small bow. “I think I should probably be getting back.”

“Indeed. Keep in mind, will you, that you can come and speak with me at any time you feel a need, and that we also have counselors available to talk to.” 

Had Nezu really just been passing by? “I will, sir, thank you.”

The principal nodded in satisfaction and left Izuku to reenter the classroom. The atmosphere was slightly more subdued, but no one mentioned his mother. He would have to ask Hitoshi later if anything had been said in his absence. He slipped into his chair and turned his notebook to the page of notes he’d made on the next fight being shown on the screen. Everyone participated normally in the rest of the evaluations and critiquing of the fights they had time to watch. If anyone had told them about Izuku’s mother, they were taking their cues from him on how to behave for the rest of class. 

“For homework, I want you all to write up a summary of what you felt the heroes in these three scenarios could have done better to achieve their objective. At least one paragraph for each hero team. Tomorrow we will review the next three battles. Dismissed.”

Izuku packed up his things and stood up to find Hitoshi already waiting for him. They fell into step with each other, and walked to get their shoes before heading toward the train station. As was becoming a pattern, Uraraka caught up with them, but they were also joined by Iida.

“Midoriya,” Iida began formally, “I wanted to extend an apology to you for bringing up a painful subject in--”

“I told them about your mom,” Hitoshi said, cutting off the other boy, before he could get carried away on one of his long winded speeches. 

“Don’t worry about it, guys. Really. It’s something that everyone should probably be aware of, so they can learn from Mt. Lady’s mistakes.” Izuku was proud that his voice remained firm and level. “It’s painful to remember, but it’s important not to forget, too. I appreciate your apology, but it isn’t necessary. I promise.”

“I’m sorry, too, Midoriya,” Uraraka said, putting a hand on his arm briefly, “I can’t imagine what you must have gone through. You can tell us, if we ever say something that upsets you.”

“Thanks, Uraraka. I’ll be okay. You’re all good friends,” Izuku assure them.

“Friends exchange phone numbers, don’t they?” Hitoshi asked with an innocent tone.

“They do!” Iida confirmed, taking out his smartphone.

Uraraka pulled a flip phone from her bag, and Hitoshi and Izuku pulled out their phones as well, exchanging numbers. Izuku suspected that Hitoshi just wanted an excuse to get Uraraka’s number - he had observed how cute she was, after all, but felt it was harmless.

“Great! Now I have friends I can ask for help on homework!” Uraraka said cheerfully.

“I would be happy to give you assistance, should you need it!” Iida told her courteously.

“You can text me anytime, too,” Hitoshi said, pocketing his phone with a satisfied smile. “Even if you just want to chat.”

“Sure,” Izuku said, making sure he had their information before putting his away. “I’m not real strong on math, but I’m not failing it, either. The rest I’m okay with.” 

They arrived at the station after that, and went their separate ways. Hitoshi followed Izuku onto the train and sighed, looking at his shoes. “I hope it was okay for me to tell them about your mom. I just thought it would be easier for you if they knew, so they wouldn’t go saying stupid stuff without thinking. Aizawa confirmed it when Kaminari said, ‘no way!’ or something like that. I don’t think he really doubted it, he was just surprised.”

“It’s fine!” Izuku said, meaning it. “I’m glad, even. It’s not something I feel like I can just come out and say without seeming like I want their pity or something, but you’re right. It should be easier now that they know. I want everyone to understand how important it is for them to be careful while they’re saving people, to make sure they aren’t also putting others in danger.”

“I think they’ll remember, now. Sensei also told them not to be asking you for details and stuff and to be sensitive,” Hitoshi answered. “Everyone seems pretty cool, so I doubt anyone will bother you about it.”

Izuku changed the subject then, satisfied that it had been handled in the best way he could have hoped for. They discussed their homework assignments until they parted ways.

The following morning, Izuku and Hitoshi approached the school gate to find a man leaning against the wall beside it. When he spotted them, he pushed off and approached them with his hands in his pockets and a casual stance. 

“Hey, are you Midoriya Izuku?”

“Who wants to know?” Hitoshi asked suspiciously. 

“I’m a reporter with Musutafu Daily,” the man said, not offering any sort of identification or credentials. 

“Never heard of it,” Hitoshi said, urging Izuku to keep walking. Izuku had gone somewhat stiff, and was looking distinctly nervous.

“Hey, is it true that Mt. Lady got suspended from hero work because of you, Midoriya-kun?”

Izuku looked like he’d been slapped, and faint red sparks appeared around his hands and on his forehead. Hitoshi took his arm to try to drag him around the reporter.

“Nope,” Hitoshi told the man, “Now get bent. We gotta get to school.”

“C’mon kid, I just want to get to the--” the man persisted, but was cut off by the arrival of another figure.

“Is there a reason you’re making my students late for class?” Aizawa did not looked pleased. “Boys, you’ve got three minutes to be in homeroom.”

Hitoshi pulled Izuku with him as he broke into a jog, trusting their teacher to handle the weird reporter. He had purposely made it seem like _he_ was Midoriya, and the guy hadn’t seemed to notice that he wasn’t, so Hitoshi doubted they man was legit. So, why had he been there?

In homeroom, Aizawa made no mention of the encounter, and instead told the class that they needed to pick a class representative. An explosion of noise erupted as hands shot into the air all over the room, students calling out reasons they should be picked. The position of class president was a hero student’s first official opportunity to prove they could handle a leadership position, and nearly everyone in the room wanted that spot. Izuku, who normally tended to avoid the spotlight, raised his hand. Now that he was reduced to taking martial arts just once a week on the weekend, he had plenty of free time after school, aside from homework. Even Bakugou, who seemed to hate other people, if his propensity for giving people rude nicknames was anything to go by, was eagerly adding to the noise. 

“Everyone! This is no way to choose!” Iida called out over the din, “This role calls for someone with critical thinking skills and management ability! Just because you want to be the representative doesn’t mean you should be! We should have a vote!”

Everyone quieted down at that.

“Won’t everyone just vote for themselves?” Kirishima asked.

“We’ve only known each other for a few days,” Asui pointed out. “We don’t really know enough about each other to choose someone based on ability.”

“Not necessarily,” Iida said with confidence. “Anyone who _does_ get more than one vote must have inspired confidence in others already, making them the best candidate. Sensei! Is it alright with you if we decide this with a vote?”

“I don’t care how you do it, just get it done by the end of homeroom,” Aizawa said, stepping into his yellow sleeping bag and becoming a big yellow cocoon.

Izuku’s imagination had him wondering if their sleep-deprived, scruffy-looking teacher would emerge transformed one day.

Since no one came forward with any better system to make the decision, everyone wrote down their vote on a piece of notebook paper, and Iida collected them all and tallied them on the chalkboard

The top votes went to Izuku and Iida, who were tied with three votes each. Yaoyorozu came in third with two votes, and only looked a little disappointed by the result. The two boys stood at the front of the room together awkwardly, wondering if they needed a tie-breaker.

“They should just play janken to decide,” Sero said, already bored now that he knew he hadn’t won.

“How about you just _both_ do it? I mean, you were just going to divide up the duties, anyway, between class rep and deputy class rep, right?” Jiro said.

“Co-representatives?” Iida asked, looking to Izuku for agreement. 

“Sounds okay to me!” Izuku was just stunned that three people who weren’t him voted for him! He’d voted for Iida, who seemed to thrive on following the rules and making sure others did the same. He suspected that Hitoshi had voted for him but he was baffled at who else might have any confidence in his leadership skills.

“Great. Now that we have that settled, we can get on with our day,” Aizawa said, emerging from his cocoon (un-transformed).

The rest of the morning was spent on regular subjects, until lunchtime. Izuku and Hitoshi were joined by Uraraka and Iida, who both congratulated him on his win.

“I don’t know why anyone wanted to vote for me,” Izuku said, taking a large bite of pork cutlet.

“I voted for you because I know you’ll do a good job,” Hitoshi said, “and I didn’t want to get saddled with all that extra work.”

Izuku rolled his eyes at that. Hitoshi wanted to be an underground type of hero, so he didn’t think it mattered much if he had the title of Class Rep on his transcripts.

“I voted for you because you seem able to control yourself and strategize on short notice. Your fight with Bakugou was impressive and your analysis of the other fights shows you have have strong reasoning skills and a real desire to help others,” Iida confessed.

“You voted for me, Iida? Ha! I voted for you!” Izuku laughed. “Well, that only leaves the mystery of who the last vote for me was.”

The other two boys looked at Uraraka.

“Sorry guys, I voted for Iida! He just has that kind of competent, ‘I-can-take-care-of-things’ air about him, you know?”

Izuku nodded eagerly. “Exactly! You can count on him to know the rules and make sure they’re followed!”

“I’m flattered that you think so,” Iida said, blushing with pride. “I want to strive to be an exemplary hero, after all!”

“I’ve thought this for a while, Iida, but are you a rich kid? You went to Soumei Academy and you talk in a very proper way,” Uraraka observed.

Iida’s shoulders sagged a little. “I was trying to tone it down a little, but I suppose it’s useless to battle against one’s own upbringing. My family has been in the hero business for generations. I’m the second son of the Iida family. Have you ever heard of Ingenium?”

Izuku practically danced with excitement in his seat, nodding. Hitoshi smirked, “Here we go!”

“Ingenium is the popular Turbo Hero! He’s the pro who has 65 sidekicks under him at his Tokyo agency! Don’t tell me…”

“He’s my elder brother!” Iida said, puffing his chest out proudly. “He’s a likable hero who follows the rules and helps people! It is my dream to follow in his footsteps and be like him. Still, it’s too soon for me to think of leading others the way he does, which is why I didn’t vote for myself.”

“Amazing!” Izuku and Uraraka said in tandem. Hitoshi looked impressed, as well.

“Are you going to--”

Just then, and ear-piercing bell sounded through the school, with the lights over the exits flashing. A fire alarm? A polite female voice sounded over the crowd as everyone was standing to evacuate: “_A level three security breach is in effect. All students evacuate outdoors immediately._”

Iida turned to another student and asked them what a level three security breach was, only to find that that it meant that someone unauthorized was trespassing on school property. The students reacted quickly, causing a scrum at the exit doors, packing them in like sardines. Iida was pressed up to HItoshi’s back, and Hitoshi was pressed into Izuku. Uraraka had gotten swept up in the crowd and was a couple of meters ahead of them, looking back over her shoulder at them helplessly. 

“Why are the doorways to the classrooms so huge, but the area with the most traffic only has normal sized doors?”Izuku grunted, leaning his head back into Hitoshi’s shoulder to avoid someone’s elbow in his face.

Hitoshi didn’t answer right away; he was looking out the window of the corridor leading outside, watching as security was apprehending someone.

“That’s the guy who was harassing us the morning,” he muttered to Izuku.

Both boys looked out on the scene to see Hound Dog and three other staff frog-marching the man away. The alarm stopped sounding as abruptly as it had begun. While Izuku and Hitoshi had been staring outside, Iida had managed to make his way to Uraraka and get himself levitated up into the air, where he used his leg engines to propel him over to the front of the crowd and shout at them.

**“CALM DOWN, EVERYONE! THE INTRUDER HAS BEEN APPREHENDED BY STAFF! PLEASE CALMLY RETURN TO THE CAFETERIA!”**

The crowd quieted at his announcement and the cessation of the alarm, and they were able to clear the corridor in a much more orderly way than they’d filled it.

“Looks like we chose the right man for class rep!” Kirishima said clapping Iida companionably on the back as they walked back to class after eating. “Way to take charge!”

“Yeah! Good job, Iida!” Kaminari agreed.

Iida looked very pleased with their vote of confidence.

After classes, Aizawa kept Hitoshi and Izuku behind to tell them that if they saw that man again, to immediately alert the authorities. He had claimed to be a reporter, but there was no evidence that there was any _Musutafu Daily_ in existence. The man had a chameleon type quirk, but wasn’t too hard to spot, if you were observant enough. He warned them to be vigilant, and reminded them that they should only use their quirks in self defense if they had no other option. At that point, they didn’t think it was going to be a problem, but it never hurt to be cautious. Both boys promised to keep an eye out, and watch each other’s backs.

The next couple of days passed uneventfully as the class finished going over the battle footage and critiquing it. On Thursday, though, something interesting finally happened. After lunch, Aizawa announced that they would be taking a field trip to do rescue training at a facility on the far end of campus, which would require them to take a bus to get to. It made one wonder just how big the campus really was, when they needed a bus to get there, and it was still on school grounds. Iida took to his position as Class Rep seriously, and tried to get everyone to board the bus in an orderly manner.

Izuku was probably the only one to notice that Hitoshi had finally gotten his hero costume and was wearing it for the first time. It wasn’t flashy, but the almost tactical black pants and shirt looked good on him. He had grey combat boots and a grey utility belt on that was similar to Izuku’s and a number of gadgets for suppressing and holding villains in the pockets and hanging from his belt. He even had a folding grappling hook that Izuku was a bit jealous of, even if he didn’t really need one himself. Best of all, he had a microphone that curled around the side of his head to amplify is voice, to be able to take control of people at a distance.

Izuku had a small existential crises during the bus ride, when everyone began teasing Bakugou about his angry disposition, and called his personality, ‘_a pile of crap steeped in sewage._ Bakugou raged at them a bit, but was tame by his standards. Izuku had never experienced anything like it. Hitoshi was laughing almost to the point of tears over seeing Bakugou get verbally thrashed, and happily high-fived Kaminari for the sewage jab. Uraraka giggled at everyone’s antics while Yaoyorozu looked a bit scandalized by it all.

A ten minute bus ride later, the class was entering a huge domed building that was almost too outrageous to believe.

“Welcome to the Unforeseen Simulation Joint - or as I like to call it, the USJ!”


	10. The USJ

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time for rescue training! Are they prepared?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, with All Might being among the dearly departed, the League of Villains has no reason to make an appearance at the USJ. Obviously, this changes things quite a bit, but I still hope you’ll enjoy their rescue training field trip! The league WILL be making an appearance, but not until after Izuku manages to gain their attention, so it’s still a few chapters away.
> 
> For those of you who are unfamiliar with the way I write, I tend to keep about five chapters ahead of what I have posted, so that if I need to go back and change details or add vital things in previous chapters for continuity (or just because I forgot to put something in), I can do it without a problem. (I already almost screwed up once and wrote half a chapter with Hitoshi being aware of One For All and had to go back a rewrite it after I was already two chapters past that part.) It gives me time to try an polish up each chapter until I’m satisfied with it. Also, if I run into an insanely busy work schedule, my posting schedule doesn’t get too thrown off, and I can still post as regularly as I like. Long story short, I’m trying! LoL.
> 
> Because I've already started chapter fifteen in my writing, I feel pretty confident that it's safe to post this chapter early, so...two in a row! Woot!

“Welcome to the Unforeseen Simulation Joint - or as I like to call it, the USJ!” The person who had spoken resembled a lumpy astronaut with skinny legs and bright yellow boots..

“It’s the space hero, Thirteen!” Uraraka whispered excitedly to Iida. “I love them!”

Izuku was equally excited, nodding enthusiastically and spouting off all sorts of stats from memory to Hitoshi while still taking in their surroundings. 

“This building is my pride and joy! It’s designed to help train you to perform rescues in all sorts of conditions! As such, it’s divided into six zones : The Ruins Zone, Landslide Zone, Mountain Zone, Conflagration Zone, Flood Zone and the Downpour Zone!” They pointed to each of the zones in turn, and the students could see partial views of what each had to offer.

Izuku stood on tiptoe to get a better look, and could see a ship and water slide in what he assumed was the flood zone, a large domed off area with red and yellow paint that looked like flames on it, a rocky mountain zone with cliffs and pointed rocks, another urban area that appeared as though there had been and earthquake or massive villain attack, and an area with a dome painted in varying shade of gray with black clouds on it. He was already patting the pockets of his utility belt for his notebook and pen as Thirteen continued speaking. Hitoshi just smirked, used to his friend’s rampant nerdiness. 

“No one can beat me in the water, _kero_” Asui said quietly, eyeing the flood zone

“Some of you have quirks that are excellent for rescue work, especially in specific environs,” Thirteen told them all. “My own quirk is called _Black Hole_, and anything I use it on gets sucked up and turns to dust. It’s very useful for rescues and extractions, but like many quirks, it could easily kill.”

The crowd of kids got unusually quiet at this, and many eyes slid over to glance at Izuku before moving back to Thirteen. Izuku merely kept his eyes on their instructor and nodded his head in agreement.

“Some of you have quirks more suited to fighting than rescuing, which only means that you will have to work harder and smarter when it comes to rescue situations. I want you all to keep in mind that in extrications, evacuations and first aid, making the wrong move at the wrong time can cost people their lives.”

Everyone looked much more serious, now that they were hearing the gravity of the possible consequences of their quirks and actions.

“However!” Thirteen said, their voice picking up a note of positivity. “You’re all here because you’ve chosen to use your quirks for a career of _helping_ others. Your quirks can be dangerous, but they can also be miraculous. They can _save_ people, and change lives. You’ve already had an assessment test that showed you what you’re capable of, and a battle simulation to show how to use your quirk in a fight. Today, you’ll learn how to safely respond to various types of disasters, and effectively handle rescue situations.”

“I’ve divided you into three groups incompletely random order,” Aizawa said, looking at his phone as he said it. “Aoyama, Ashido, Asui, Iida, Uraraka, Ojiro. You’re with Thirteen.”

“We’re off to the Flood Zone!” Thirteen said cheerfully, motioning their group to follow.

“Kaminari, Kirishima, Kouda, Satou, Shinsou, Shouji and Jiro,” Aizawa called out. ”You’re with Present Mic.”

Before anyone could say anything, Present Mic burst through the doors and shouted, “**Sorry I’m late, little listeners! Follow me to the Ruins Zone!” ** He was obviously pretending not to see Aizawa’s disapproving look as he marched away with his charges.

“Sero, Tokoyami, Todoroki, Bakugou, Midoriya and Yaoyorozu, you’re with me. We’re headed to the Conflagration Zone.”

“Completely random order? He just read off the seating chart,” Sero murmured as they fell into step behind their teacher.

Bakugou snorted in amusement.

Izuku could swear he heard Aizawa muttering quietly to himself, “_I woke him up in plenty of time to get his ass in gear._

Izuku didn’t comment, but instead followed behind their teacher, falling into step with Todoroki and Yaoyorozu as they made their way through the central plaza to reach the Conflagration Zone.

“Have either of you worked on rescue, before?” He asked them as they walked. “I mean, I’m first aid and CPR certified, of course, but I’ve never had practical training like this.”

Yaoyorozu shook her head. “Like you, I also have basic life saving training, but I was always more focused on my studies and fighting skills.”

Izuku had a feeling from her manner of speech and the discomfort she had displayed on the bus that Yaoyorozu had probably grown up in a wealthy or sheltered home.

“I was always forced to concentrate on fighting and quirk training,” Todoroki said flatly.

Izuku was somewhat concerned that this was the second time the other boy had mentioned being forced to train. Yaoyorozu glanced at him askance, as well, but didn’t comment. 

“I helped with a search and rescue once,” Tokoyami said from behind them, “But it wasn’t anything significant. A child got lost and the whole community spread out to search for her. I don’t think that counts for much.”

“I think that it does,” Izuku told him, looking back to meet the eyes of his avian headed classmate. “I think a lot of search and rescue is kind of tedious and unrewarding until you actually find the people who need help. It still needs to be done, though.”

“I agree,” Yaoyorozu added. “A willingness to help others is one of the most basic requirements in hero work.”

“I think it’s super impressive, too!” came a voice right beside Midoriya.

He gave an undignified yelp that had Todoroki smirking and the kids giggling as Hagakure patted his arm with a gloved hand. “S-s-sorry, Hagakure! I didn’t see you...well, of course I didn’t see you, ha ha! I just mean…”

This just made his classmates laugh more, and Aizawa smirk.

“Don’t worry, Midoriya! It happens all the time!”

They reached the fiery dome and Aizawa keyed in the code to open the doors. The blast of heat was immediate, and everyone narrowed their eyes against the glare. There was a miniature cityscape afire in front of them, though there was a marked lack of smoke. 

“Who can name some of the main objectives in responding to a fire like this?” Aizawa asked them once they were standing just inside the doors that had slid shut behind them.

“Preventing injuries and fatalities!” Izuku said promptly.

“Extinguishing the fire!” Yaoyorozu said at nearly the same time.

“Prevent the fire from spreading?” Hagakure guessed, her gloved hand waving in the hair.  
“Evacuate any civilians in the area,” Sero added.

“All good answers,” their teacher allowed. “Let’s say you arrive on the scene, and there are people and heroes everywhere, moving in all directions. What’s the first thing you do?”

“Start helping people. Duh.” Sero said lazily.

“Wrong.” Aizawa remained expressionless as Sero looked confused.

“Find out who’s in charge!” Yaoyorozu said immediately. “If a chain of command has been established, you should find out from them where you’re needed or would be most useful.”

“Correct,” Aizawa told her with a nod. They had to raise their voices over the roar of the flames. “You will often be working in tandem with police and fire crews who have many years of experience in fighting fires. A hero will normally only get called in if something goes catastrophically wrong that normal firefighters can’t handle. Otherwise, you should offer help, but stay out of the way if they ask you to.”

Aizawa gestured to the burning city in front of them. “This would fall into the ‘catastrophic’ category. A wide-spread fire like this, fully involved with multiple buildings will require a lot of coordination and communication among many different agencies, both hero and municipal. Find the people in charge and take your orders from them. You’re there to help, not to take over.”

He paused to let them all take a good look at the layout of the streets they could see, and the man burning buildings. Izuku wondered if this was an exaggeration for the point of training, or if they could actually expect to see this kind of widespread devastation in the field. He recalled Gran telling him on more than one occasion to always expect the worst and hope for the best. Sweat was beading up on his skin from the heat, and the others were looking uncomfortable, as well.

“Inside these buildings, there are mannequins representing people in need of rescue. Each one will have a way to communicate with you, or an obvious sign of what is wrong with them that prevented them from evacuating. Your job will be to work together to find and rescue the civilians in buildings C and D, which are clearly marked on both the building and the street. Each building has four floors. You will be provided with breathing apparatus, fire extinguishers, radios, headlamps and a basic first aid kit. You will also be given panic buttons to strap to your wrist, should you require rescue yourselves. Pressing the button will immediately cut off the flames in the building you’re in and summon me. Thirteen has spared no expense in making this as realistic as possible, for an immersive experience.

“Take a few minutes to discuss tactics as a team, then you will have an hour to complete your objective.”

Aizawa stepped away from the group to prepare their gear while his students talked.

“How many of us are suited to work in a burning building?” Izuku asked as they gathered in a small circle. “I’ve got strength and speed, but I’m not immune to fire.”

“I have my ice,” Todoroki volunteered, “I can help extinguish flames or make escape routes.”

“Don’t you have a fire side, as well?” Yaoyorozu asked. “Does that give you any type of immunity to heat?”

“Some, but I can still be burned, obviously,” he replied, gesturing to his left eye. “I don’t use my left side.”

“Dark Shadow is weakened by light,” Tokoyami confessed, “but unless it’s extremely bright, I can use him to help move victims or debris without injury to myself.”

“I’m afraid I’m not suited for this at all,” Hagakure lamented. “I’m pretty good with first aid, but I’m basically naked. I’d need a suit of some kind to even be able to attempt to go into a burning building.”

“I can make you something,” Yaoyorozu said, already starting to pull what looked like a fire fighter’s coat from her exposed body. “I’ll need something, as well. Good thing I ate a good lunch.”

“My tape’s not fireproof,” Sero said, ”but it is slow burning. I can help with immobilizing victims and getting them ready for transport.”

“We should split into two teams,” Bakugou said gruffly, “Cover more ground, more quickly. The buildings are right across the street from each other, so if one group finishes first, they can go and help the other.”

“What a minute! What about your hands?” Izuku asked pointedly. 

Bakugou tsked and shook his head. “Mind your own damn business, Deku. I actually know how to control _my_ quirk.”

“You sweat liquid explosives,” Izuku pointed out firmly. “If a flame gets too close to your hands, there’s no controlling that. One explosion in an already volatile environment could be even more disastrous. ”

“I _said_\--” Bakugou began angrily.

“Yaoyorozu-san,” Izuku interrupted. “I hate to ask even more of you, but do you think you could make fireproof gloves for him? Or some _phos chek_ to pour on the ones he’s wearing?”

“Oi! The fuck! Who put Deku in charge?” Bakugou shouted angrily.

“He’s making sense, man,” Sero said, placing a hand on Bakugou’s shoulder, only to sigh when it was shrugged off. “No matter how good your control is, it’s not worth the risk. There are civilians in there, remember?”

“Your time’s just about up,” Aizawa told them, approaching as though he hadn’t heard the whole conversation. “Do you have a plan?”

“Still working on it, sensei,” Izuku said. He turned back to see Hagakure clad in a heavy jumpsuit that was most likely fire retardant, and Yaoyorozu handing Bakugou a pair of heavy fireman’s gloves, a jumpsuit of her own ready to be put on.

“Hurry up,” Aizawa ordered. “And put your gear on while you’re at it.”

All of them began to gear up while Izuku mapped out what he thought they should do. “Bakugou’s idea is a good one. Let’s split into two teams. Todoroki, Bakugou and Sero, you three take building C. Todoroki’s Ice should help counter any problems that might arise if there are any unwanted explosions, and can help shore up any structural problems, while Sero can help with the victims. Yaoyorozu, Tokoyami, Hagakure and I will take building D. Remember to check everywhere. People act irrationally in panic situations. Is everyone okay with that?”

Everyone but Bakugou nodded, securing their breathing apparatuses on their faces. While he didn’t make any sign of agreement, he also didn’t voice any disagreement, either. 

“Stay in contact through the radios. One person from each team should keep to channel two for communication between buildings. Bakugou’s team should use channel one and my team should use channel three.” Yaoyorozu said. 

They all checked and coordinated before nodding and heading off to their assigned buildings. The heat intensified as Izuku led his team forward. There was steam and smoke filling the corridors from the overhead sprinklers trying to quell the flames and making visibility almost zero. Izuku hadn’t noticed any smoke from outside, and wondered if it had been added for exercise once they entered the building for realism. Either way, they had a job to do. “Tokoyami! Is Dark Shadow able to help at all?”

“The smoke is keeping it dark, and shouldn’t affect him. He can be a scout,” Tokoyami affirmed. 

Their voices were garbled through the masks, but decipherable. 

He gave Tokoyami a thumb’s up. “Have him scout ahead, where possible and warn us of any danger or signs of victims! If he can open any windows to the outside, it could vent some of this smoke and get us more visibility!”

They were all quickly becoming drenched by the constant water scattering over everything from the ceiling, and Izuku hoped the others had more waterproofing in their costumes than he did. It was uncomfortable and chafing against his skin.

“Everyone remember that heat and smoke rise, so if it gets too much, get low to the floor,” Izuku directed. “Stay together as much as possible. Let us know if you’re in trouble or need a break.”

The roaring of the flames was similar to the howl of wind in a typhoon, and made it hard to hear anything else. The building appeared to be a residential one, with four apartments on each floor. The group moved slowly through the corridor, checking apartments room by room, searching for signs of life. It was slow going, and they banged into a lot of walls and corners when the smoke made them disoriented. They used their fire extinguishers sparingly to clear the way when needed, taking care to watch each other’s backs. Hagakure saved Izuku from a nasty blow to the back when a chunk of ceiling fell, by pushing him out of the way just in time. Dark Shadow flickered in and out of sight as the flames rose and fell, but never completely lost form. The first floor was cleared with no sign of victims, and they moved to the second. Dark shadow managed to get a couple of windows open in each apartment, helping with the smoke.

Izuku was relieved to find that the stairs were made of concrete and steel, so they didn’t have to worry too much about structural integrity. He felt uncomfortable, as if he were slowly boiling in his own skin, and worried that they were taking too long. Each moment seemed to drag as they made their way around with very few landmarks to navigate by. As they neared the top of the steps, they could hear a reedy voice calling out, _“Heeeeeelp meeeeee!” _

“Did you hear that?" Hagakure asked Her voice sounded distant through her breathing mask.

“Yes, but just barely,” Tokoyami said. He was hard to see in the increasingly smoke filled halls. “Dark Shadow! Go!”

The light was drowned out by the smoke, providing a better environment for the avian form to gather strength. There was a crashing sound as the door to the apartment on their right was ripped from its frame, and Dark Shadow sped inside. A moment later, Tokiyami hurried forward, calling, “There’s a child and an adult!”

The rest of the team rushed forward and got to work searching the rest of the apartment while Yaoyorozu went straight to the victims. When Izuku determined there was no one else in the space, he rushed to the bathroom, where Yaoyorozu was kneeling with her first aid kit open. The air was cooler in here, and not as much smoke clogged the air, instead hanging in wispy tendrils above their heads. The mannequins were rather life-like. The voice recording coming from the adult woman figure was still playing, _ “Heeeeeelp meeeeee!” _ It had a gash in it’s forehead with blood seeping slowly down it’s cheek, with bruising around it. 

“Don’t worry, we’re here to help!” Hagakure assured her, taking the mannequin’s hand as she might a real victims. “We’re going to treat your head and and get you to safety.”

As if waiting for the reassurance was a trigger, the mannequin’s recording changed. _"Help my baby, first! He was crying, but now he’s stopped! Help him!”_

Izuku noted the child figure in the woman’s arms appeared to be the size for two or three year old toddler, and swallowed hard. Pulling off a glove, Izuku felt for a pulse in the child’s neck, not sure what to expect. He felt a huge surge of relief when there was a throbbing under his fingertips, indicating a pulse. If the skin wasn’t so stiff and rubbery, Izuku might have believed it to be real. “He’s got a pulse! He’s unconscious, but alive. I don’t see any other signs of injury.We need to get them both out of here. Tokoyami, can you get Dark Shadow to bust out a window in the other room that we can lower them out of?”

They worked a little clumsily in the bulky gear, but managed to perform cursory first aid on the mother figure and get her and the child out of the bathroom and to the window. Smoke was being sucked out into the faux night sky, and it was brighter outside. Tokoyami doubted whether it was safe to send Dark Shadow to carry the victims, so Yaoyorozu produced a strap while Izuku broke apart the dining table to make a plank to secure the victims to. Just as they got them secured, their radio for the other team crackled to life and Sero’s voice could be heard telling them that they had finished with their objective and were coming to lend support.

“_We’re about to evacuate two victims from the second floor window on the north side of the building. Please come to the alley under the broken out window to assist,_” Yaoyorozu said into her radio.

“_Roger that_,” Sero answered. “_ETA about thirty seconds_.”

A few moments later, their three classmates appeared in the alley below, looking up toward the window. The space below was currently free of flames, so Izuku called down to Sero to shoot two parallel strips of tape up to the window sill, and secure them on his end so he could use them as a zipline of sorts. He placed the plank with the secured mannequins on the tape after testing their strength, and then held onto it as he slid down behind it Todoroki caught the makeshift stretcher as Izuku’s feet touched ground, and they were able to slide it to a gentle stop. Sero and Bakugou had been holding the tape taut, but released it once the victims were safe.

Izuku pulled off his mask and took great gulps of the relatively cooler night air as he thanked them for the assistance. Aizawa appeared as if summoned and told them that the two victims were considered ‘saved’ and that they should get back to their mission. He offered no congratulations or admonishments, and left them to finish their work. 

“You guys finished fast, good work. Do you want to see if you can take the floor above us, and we can continue as two teams?” Izuku asked.

“That’ll work,” Bakugo said in an uncharacteristic show of team work. “Well let you know if we find any more victims.”

Izuku nodded, slipped his mask back on, and simply jumped up to the window sill with a burst of One for All. As he climbed back into the apartment, he relayed the information to the others, and suggested they move to the other apartments. It only took them another moment to find a howling cat figure ‘hiding’ in the kitchen of the next apartment. Not sure what to do about it, Izuku finally asked for Dark Shadow to lower it out of a window to the ground below. Even if Dark Shadow dropped it by mistake, cats were supposed to land on their feet most of the time, right? They moved on. Just as they got to the bottom of the stairs, the other team reported that they found a victim in one of the rooms above.

“There’s someone here on the stairs!” Hagakure called back to them. A moment later, she called out, “I don’t feel a pulse, and he looks kinda grey! Do we have an AED? I’m gonna start CPR!”

While Hagakure started chest compression, Tokoyami searched for an AED, but found nothing in the first aid kits they were given. “What do we do?” Hagakure asked, grunting with effort.

“We need to get him out of here and to some medics,” Yaoyorozu said. " I can make a stretcher…”

“Everyone stand back!” Izuku said loudly. He bounded up to the top of the staircase and punched the wall hard enough to break through a small hole. He stuck his head through and looked down to make sure the alley was clear, then punched it again to make a larger hole. Smoke poured out through the new exit while Izuku hurried back down to the victim on the landing below. Tokoyami had taken over “Good job, I’ll take it from here.” 

Izuku crouched to pick up the victim in a cradle hold, which felt disconcertingly realistic and limp in his arms. “Go meet up with the others, I’ll be back to join you once I’ve gotten this one to safety.” With those parting words, he simply jumped to the top of the stairs and out of the hole he’d made a minute ago. He landed on his feet, but in a crouch to lessen the impact on both his legs and the victim. Aizawa appeared like a ninja, startling his student.

“This victim is marked as handed off to the proper authorities on scene,” he said calmly. “Are your arms and legs in one piece?”

“They don’t feel great,” Izuku said, already eyeing the hole he was planning on jumping back into. “But they don’t feel broken. I can still help.”

The radio squawked, then, “_We’ve got two kids under a bed and an unresponsive adult on the third floor. Extracting now_.”

“_Roger that, coming now!_” Izuku answered into his own radio.

He didn’t wait for permission, only jumped back the way he’d come out. He misjudged the height a bit and had a moment of panic when he had to make a wild grab to pull himself all the way up, but he made it in the end. He dashed up the remaining staircase to the third floor to find it much cooler, as there was a trail of rapidly melting ice coating the floor and half way up the walls. He followed in its wake and soon caught up to the group, lowering a victim out of a window on a harness made of Sero’s tape as he lowered the mannequin to the ground. 

“Midoriya!” Hagakure greeted him when he caught up with them. “That was so fast! You know, has anyone ever told you that your quirk is similar to All Might’s? “

“Seriously?” Midoriya answered with an air of surprise. He was grateful that the breathing mask hid his expression. Before he could say anything more, Todoroki spoke up. 

“That’s it for this floor,”he said, “Just the third floor left.”

At that moment, there was a small explosion near the door to the hallway, and a hole opened up in the floor. They looked toward the sound just in time to see Bakugou fall through it to the floor below. 

“He took one of his gloves off! Some of his sweat must’ve ignited!” Izuku said, spotting one empty glove on the floor beside the hole, which was right in front of their exit. “I’ll go after him. Todoroki, can you plug up this hole with a sheet of ice thick enough to get all of you past it, so you can get to the fourth floor?”

Todoroki nodded, and Izuku checked below to make sure he wouldn’t be jumping directly on top of Bakugou before he dropped down through the meter-wide hole. Bakugou was on his back, headpiece knocked off and headlamp gone. His breathing apparatus was askew, but it was easy to see that his eyes were unfocused, but open.  
Izuku was only vaguely aware that the hole in the ceiling was being plugged with ice as he crouched to check for obvious injuries.

“Shit,” Izuku muttered to himself. “Bakugou! Bakugou, can you hear me?”

“What time is it?” Bakugou mumbled, just loud enough for Izuku to make out what he was saying. 

There was debris everywhere from the floor/ceiling that had just been torn through, and smoke gathered on the ice patched ceiling and began to fill the room. Izuku ran and opened a window to vent it, then picked his way back to Bakugou, kneeling at his side.

Just then, Izuku’s radio came to life and Sero called, “_Last victim secured. We’re ready to evacuate. How’s Bakugou?_”

Izuku sighed with relief, worry and frustration, all at once. He reached for Bakugou’s wrist and pressed the panic button strapped there. At once, flames dimmed down, then sputtered away, sprinklers trickled to a stop, and the smoke was extracted by fans coming to life in hidden recesses in the walls. He pulled everything off of his head and picked up the radio on his belt.

“_Injured, possible concussion. I hit the panic button and will wait for Aizawa before trying to move him._”

Bakugou groaned then, and Izuku pulled his first aid kit around his body and looked at the contents. There were no open wounds on Bakugou’s face, but the back of his head might be another matter. When he started to flail his arms, as if looking for a way to sit up, Izuku grabbed his hands and held them firmly.

“You need to lay still,” he said quietly. “Help is on the way. You fell and hit your head. Can you tell me your name?”

“Fuck….you...Deku,” Bakugou rasped out through the mask. He was easier to hear now, without the roaring of the flames everywhere. 

“Close enough,” Izuku said with a half smile. He gently slid the mask away from Bakugou’s face to better hear him. “You know as well as I do that you shouldn’t move yet. Do you hurt anywhere?”

“Back of my head. Shoulder. Back,” came the gruff answer.

“Well, that makes sense. You landed mostly on your air tank. You’ll be okay, though, Aizawa is on the way. Just focus and staying awake and alert.” Izuku said in a comforting tone. He might not like the other student, but he was still a human being who was hurt and probably scared at the moment.

“Report,” Aizawa demanded as he entered the room and strode purposefully over to kneel beside them. He was followed by two small robots carrying a long orange board between them. 

“The floor gave way under him and he fell through,” Izuku told him. “I jumped through to check on him while the others went on to finish checking for victims. I talked to him and he knows who I am and could answer questions, though he was confused at first. He said the back of his head and his shoulder and back hurt.”

“Good. I’m going to need you to help me get him stabilized and strapped to a back-board.”

“I don’ need that shit,” Bakugou protested, but his words came slowly and without heat. Not the best sign.

“Shut up,” Aizawa said casually, assessing his condition, then he produced a knife from his boot and cut the straps of his breathing tank, carefully pulling the apparatus off of his head. “He’s got a pretty large goose egg on the back of his head. Doesn’t feel like it’s split open, though.” 

Izuku followed directions and helped to get an immobilizing collar on Bakugou’s neck. Together they slid him onto the back board while trying not to hurt him any more than he already was. Aizawa strapped him down and gave the robots the order to take him to the USJ entryway. They would take him to Recovery Girl in a van that was already en route from the main school building. 

Izuku followed Aizawa at a slightly more sedate pace, beginning to feel the aches and pains he’d gathered during the exercise. His whole body felt like one giant knot of tension, and his skin felt like he’d spent the day on the beach with no protection from the summer sun. He didn’t remember it happening, but he also seemed to have some scrapes or burns on his jaw that were beginning to really sting from the salt of the sweat rolling off of him. He was also really, really thirsty. He was sure his friends probably felt the same.

“The floor should not have been unstable in that area,” Aizawa said as they descended the stairs together. “What happened?”

“I’m not absolutely sure, but it seems that Bakugou took off one of his gloves for some reason, and my guess is that his sweat dripped on a flame or somehow ignited, and caused a small explosion.” Izuku recounted. It was not his place to judge, since he hadn’t seen for himself exactly what preceded the accident. “I’m sorry, sir. I should have been paying better attention.”

Aizawa grunted at that, but Izuku couldn't have said whether it was in agreement or denial. They exited the building to find that the entire cityscape was now extinguished and much quieter than it had been upon their arrival. Lights were now functional, casting a glow over everything and making it seem a lot less ominous. The rest of the students in their group rushed forward when they saw Izuku and their teacher exit the building, and demanded answers about Bakugou’s condition. They were noisy all the way to the entryway of the USJ, where they met up with the two other groups, who were waiting in various states of dishevelment. 

Izuku was just noticing that the Flood Zone people were soaked from head to toe, but had towels in their hands to dry off with. The Ruins Zone group was dusty, sweaty and had a lot of scrapes and bruises evident. His own group looked sunburned, grimy and soggy and…

“Tokoyami! Your hands!” Hagakure gasped loudly.

Heads turned toward Tokoyami, who grimaced as his hands were pulled forward by invisible ones and exposed. His palms were bright red and blistered, some of which had already burst and were oozing angrily. 

“I foolishly grabbed a metal rod with my bare hands,” he explained.

“You should have said something!” Yaoyorozu scolded. “I didn’t realize you didn’t have gloves! We also had first aid kits! We could’ve treated them!”

“I didn’t want to slow anyone down,” he said, hissing at the pain, now that his wounds were exposed to the air.

Jiro stepped forward with a bottle of water and gently poured it over his wrists, letting it trickle down onto his abused palms in an effort to soothe the pain a little.  
“Is anyone else injured?” Aizawa asked the group.

“Shinsou has a gash in his leg that should be looked at,” Present Mic said.

Izuku’s gaze shot in that direction to see that the leg of Hitoshi’s pants were torn and bloody, and bandages could be seen through the tear. 

“It’s no big deal,” he muttered, not liking the attention.

“Alright. Shinsou and Tokoyami will ride in the van with Bakugou to see Recovery Girl. The rest of you will ride back on the bus.” 

There was a lot of chatter as everyone moved to follow his directions. Iida and Midoriya checked on each student as they climbed onto the bus, distributing water and/or small towels to those who needed them before boarding themselves and sitting down.

“Good job, everyone,”Aizawa told them before getting in the driver’s seat. “We will be making more trips to the USJ throughout your time at Yuuei, so you will each get a chance to experience all of the zones at least once before you graduate. When we get back to the school, everyone will have a quick check up by a medic, then you can clean up and leave any uniforms that need cleaning or repair in the marked lockers. After that, return to the classroom.”

Izuku was cleared by the medic, but was told to be sure to rehydrate, since he’d probably dropped several kilograms just from sweating in the fiery environment. He opted for a cool shower over a hot one after stripping off his soggy costume. The water was refreshing, and he was a little surprised by how much dirt and debris fell out of his hair while shampooing it. The cool water felt like bliss on his overheated skin, so he stood there for a few extra minutes, just enjoying it.

“You trying to drown yourself?” Hitoshi called in to him after a while.

“Tosh! How’s your leg?” Izuku turned off the water and wrapped a towel around his hips before stepping out.

Hitoshi was already done showering and wearing his uniform when Izuku appeared. “It’s fine; I told you it was nothing. The old lady still gave me a tetanus shot, though.”

Izuku hurriedly dressed when he realized that nearly everyone else had gone to class. Aoyama was still at the mirror fixing his hair, but that was it. Hair still damp, Izuku walked quickly with Hitoshi to class and slid into his chair just as Aizawa started talking.

“Many of you probably noticed today that your hero costumes are lacking in one area or another. Now would be a good time to fill out a request form to have any additions or subtractions made, now that you know the sorts of conditions you might encounter on a rescue mission. You will likely go through several versions of your costume before you graduate as you discover what best suits you and your area of expertise as it develops.”

He tapped a stack of papers on his desk, indicating where the forms would be if they cared to take one on their way out. 

“On the whole, I’ve heard good things about your efforts today,” the teacher continued. “I will be meeting with Present Mic and Thirteen to go over individual performances so that we can give you honest feedback about how you did and what needs work. Your homework for this weekend is to rest up and think about your experiences today so that we can have an intelligent discussion about it on Monday.”

The class whooped at the prospect of no _real_ homework for one of their classes, and almost everyone grabbed a form for a costume adjustment on their way out. Izuku grabbed two.

“Two? Don’t tell me…” Hitoshi groaned as they left the classroom.

“I _am_ the class rep,” Izuku said. “I really should go and check to make sure he’s all right.”

“_Co_-class rep,” Hitoshi said, “Can’t Iida do it? He lives for that stuff!”

Izuku just shrugged and kept walking in the direction of the nurse’s office. “You could go on ahead without me,” he said, knowing Hitoshi wouldn’t abandon him. “Besides, Iida was one of the first ones out the door.”

With a heavy sigh, Hitoshi walked with Izuku to the nurse’s office, and was delighted to find that Bakugou had already left for the day, having been picked up by his father just a short while ago. The boys made their way out of the school and walked leisurely to the train station, talking about their experiences at the USJ. Neither one of them noticed they were being followed by a humanoid blur of color.


	11. Ups and Downs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sports Festival, part one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! It’s Sports Festival time! I took the liberty of changing...most of it for the first two events, and a lot of the third event. I feel like writing action isn’t my strong suit, so I hope you enjoy what I’ve done with this! The Sports Festival will likely take me two chapters to finish, but I’ll be sure to have the second part up in the next week!

That night, Izuku and Gran stayed up late playing shogi while Izuku told him all about the USJ. They talked about possible modifications for his costume and discussed the upcoming Sports Festival. Gran nibbled a taiyaki while Izuku considered his next move on the game board, then suddenly cleared his throat.

“You haven’t had any more run-ins with that fake reporter?”

“Huh? Oh! No, I haven’t. Today was so crazy, I forgot all about it, but Hitoshi and I have been really careful to watch for anything weird.” Izuku said. He’d had time to think about why the man had been looking for him. “The way he was asking about Mt. Lady was creepy, but I think maybe he’s just some nut who was upset she got into trouble.”

Gran seemed satisfied that Izuku didn’t seem as distressed as he had when he had talked about it three days ago. Gran had gotten a call from the school about it, and had hired someone to come and put alarms on the doors, and a video doorbell that would record any movement near it. The kid was a powerhouse, but Gran didn’t want him to have to use that power against someone targeting him in his own home. He wasn’t a hero yet, and had a lot to learn before he was ready to face any villain, or even just a nutcase.

“Don’t let your guard down,” Gran advised, “Weirdos can still be dangerous.”

Izuku nodded in agreement, and nothing more was said about ti.

The next day, Izuku and Hitoshi met to go over more of the footage they’d been studying about the Sports Festival. Izuku had made a list of the types of challenges that had been used in past years to try to come up with a strategy for training, though they didn’t have much time left. He divided the challenges into categories based on whether they needed more physical strength, endurance, or tactics. Hitoshi had managed to get a copy of the Official Sports Festival General Rules, and they pored over the pages, looking at what was and wasn’t allowed during game play. 

In class on Monday, Aizawa also brought up the upcoming sports festival. They had two weeks to prepare, and he encouraged them to use the time wisely.

“Your performance in this sports festival is your first real chance to be noticed by some of the top pros. You still have a long way to go before graduation, but they are still going to be looking for the students who show the most promise to keep an eye one for possible recruitment in three years time. Don’t waste this opportunity.”

The prospect of being noticed by pros invigorated the entire class. Even their academic classes became something of a competition in their excitement, adding a level of fun, but also stress to the weeks leading up to the festival. Izuku and Hitoshi began pushing their morning runs longer, on a more rigorous route than usual, and spent a lot of time practicing their hand/eye coordination and grip strength for possible events including targets or hanging for long periods of time. One festival a decade ago had eliminated two dozen hopefuls by simply making them hang from a high wire while it was being moved, vibrated and swung around until all but ten dropped out, literally. They vowed not to be outdone by something so trivial. They practiced balance, throwing, climbing; anything the could think of to give them an edge.

Gran watched their training with amusement and not a small amount of pride. Maybe this was what it would have been like to have a grandson of his own? Izuku was as good as family, in his book, even if he had never really had one of his own. He already had his ticket for the Sports Festival, and was going to be allowed to sit in the Alumni section, thanks to his connections at the school.

On the day of the Sports Festival, Izuku was a bundle of nerves. Gran had seen them off with a cheerful, “Show ‘em what you’re made of, boys!” 

He and Hitoshi had met that morning for their usual run, but didn’t attempt any further training. They were only allowed their gym uniforms for the festival, since their superior quirks gave them an advantage over students in other departments with less physically advantageous quirks. Class 1-A was gathered together in a small room in the walls of the stadium, waiting for the crowd to get settled. Some of the kids were stretching or meditating, a couple were joking around or listening to music to try to break the tension.

Izuku and Hitoshi sat at a table, talking quietly about how Hitoshi’s family would be watching on television, when Todoroki approached.

“Midoriya.”

Izuku looked up and stared at the other boy with wide eyes, surprised to be sought out by him. “Yes?” He ignored Hitoshi’s snort as Izuku’s voice chose to crack at that moment.

“I’ve heard a couple of people comparing your quirk to All Might’s.” Todoroki said flatly.

The room quieted at that, and heads turned toward them, blatantly eavesdropping. Bakugou narrowed his eyes with suspicion.

“Er… I don’t think…” Izuku began, at a loss for what to say, searching heterochromatic eyes for a clue about what the other boy was thinking.

“Objectively speaking, I think I’m stronger than you.” Todoroki didn’t look angry, but certainly didn’t seem friendly, either. “I just want you to know that I’m going to do my best to beat you, today. I have something to prove, and I’m going to win.”

“Whoa! Todoroki’s throwin’ down the gauntlet!” Kirishima said, hardening his hands and smacking his fists together. “I’m gettin’ fired up, now!” 

“Maybe you are stronger,” Izuku said, finally coming out of this stupor. “But all of us here have worked hard, we all have something to prove, too. I’m going to do everything I can to win, so bring everything you’ve got.”

“You two think you’re stronger than me?” Bakugou demanded angrily, jumping to his feet and banging his hand on the table for emphasis, making sparks fly. “I’m going to be the one standing on that podium today! Just stay out of my fuckin’ way!”

Hitoshi looked impressed. “Wow, Zu! Look at you, making friends and rivals left and right!”  
Uraraka giggled a bit at that, and Hitoshi winked at her.

Izuku rolled his eyes, but didn’t have time for anything else, because the door opened and Cementos leaned in to tell them it was time. The group took a collective breath and stood. They filed out, none of them speaking as they walked down the corridor and out into the daylight of the full stadium, voices and cheering washing over them as they gathered in front of the field. They could hear Present Mic commentating to the crowd and getting everyone hyped up as the other classes assembled around them.

“Incredible,” Iida said on Midoriya’s left. “Think of how many scouts and pros are here to measure our performance!”

Midoriya nodded, feeling a little overwhelmed. It was rare to see Iida looking nervous at all.

“This is so exciting!” Uraraka said, cheeks pinker than usual. “A chance to be noticed!”

They gathered together as the other classes made their way out to join them.

“Oh yeah,” Hitoshi said in Midoriya’s ear, “I forgot to tell you...Aizawa wanted me to let you know that as the highest scorer on the entrance exam, you have to give the opening speech.”

“_**WHAT?**_” Izuku shouted in dismay. Everyone turned to see why Midoriya was shouting. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

Hitoshi, the picture of innocence, shrugged and said, “Nope. Sorry.”

“_**And now, the highest scoring student in the entrance exams**_,” Present Mic told the crowd, “_**Midoriya Izuku will give the opening speech and school motto!**_”

“Highest scoring in the _hero_ department,” someone muttered as Hitoshi shoved Izuku forward, making him stumble on the steps on his way to the small stage and microphone.

“_**Um… HI,**_” Izuku said nervously, voice shaking as he realized just how many people were staring right at him expectantly. The sound of his voice seemed to travel around the stadium like an echo. “_**I just want to say that I...I hope everyone is able to do their absolute best! Um…Plus Ultra!**_”

“_**PLUS ULTRA!**_” the crowd roared back, followed by thunderous applause. Izuku visibly sagged with relief as he retreated back to his classmates.

“Remind me to murder you later,” Izuku told HItoshi as his friends cheered him and slapped him excitedly on the back.

**_”A man of few words!”_** Present Mic shouted over the crowd, “_**I like it! Let’s get this event started! Midnight, would you please reveal the first event?**_”

Midnight extended an arm and waved her flogger at the jumbo screen and shouted into her microphone, “_**OBSTACLE COURSE!**_” just as the words appeared with a sparkling animation. “This four kilometer race will have a variety of challenges to test your physical and mental fortitude! The first thirty-two competitors to cross the finish line will advance to the next event! Our camera robots will be on hand to capture all the action!”

Izuku and Hitoshi looked at each other and nodded, bumping fists as the crowd cheered. Students gathered in a large covered corridor that would start when the doors to the corridor were opened. It was a tight fit, with many pushing forward to try and get a better position. Izuku stayed close to Hitoshi until the door suddenly dropped downward until it was flush with the ground. The crowd surged forward, only to come to a stop when corridor narrowed, similar to when they had been stuck during the intruder evacuation a few weeks earlier. A moment later, the temperature dropped, and many people got frozen to the ground as Todoroki took the lead right away and skated ahead. Not far behind, Bakugo, Yaoyorozu, Aoyama, Kirishima and a few others took to the air in various ways to follow him. Izuku simply shoved Hitoshi forward, causing him to glide across the ice like a hockey puck until the ground was no longer slippery. Izuku made a jump that had him landing about half way to Hitoshi, but cracking the ice enough to give him traction for a second jump that let him clear the ice. He and Hitoshi fist bumped as they ran forward past a couple of the challengers.

Aoyama got cocky as he soared through the air with one of navel laser blasts, but regretted it instantly when he was smacked out of the air by the scorpion like tail of one of the robots from the entrance exam. Several of the robots were ranged around, blocking the path, including the Zero-Pointer robots that towered far over the others. Six of them formed a wall that had anyone who had made it past the ice, freeze in a different way. Todoroki began with an offensive move that iced the robots while they were off balance, and proceeded to run past. While others were getting excited that he’d cleared the way for them, the unstable bots crashed to the ground, blocking the path even more. Even as they fell, more robots were gathering and bearing down on the group.

Many were exclaiming about the danger, some worried about being killed for a contest. Their hesitancy was going to work in Izuku and Hitoshi’s favor.

“I can’t believe you brought one of those down with your bare hands,” Hitoshi told Izuku as they stared up at the monstrosities. “Ready for this?” 

“Bring it.” Izuku’s eyes went blank as Hitoshi took control.

“PIck me up carefully and get past the robots as quickly as you can without injuring either of us.” Hitoshi ordered. 

They had planned things like this meticulously during their training sessions; working on their wording while leaving enough open to Izuku’s subconscious to freely interpret what he was being asked to do. It eliminated all of the uncertainty that Izuku had over his abilities and the worry and second guessing for both of them while getting the job done quickly and efficiently. Izuku scooped Hitoshi up as ordered and was jumping and climbing up and over the robots, leaving most of the other students behind. Once they were clear, Hitoshi released Izuku, and they took off running toward the next obstacle. Bakugou close behind, along with a few other students who were able to maneuver or simply crash their way through. 

A pit soon lay before them with a thirty meter drop to the bottom. Above the pit, dozens upon dozens of rings hung from ropes suspended from bars. Todoroki and Bakugou were in the lead, but not by much; Hitoshi and Izuku leaped at the same time with no hesitation and grabbed at the rings, swinging like spider monkeys across the thirty meter gap. Bakugou lost some time trying to use his explosions to fly past the rings, but came down too soon and missed his grab for the rings, because they were swinging wildly in the wake of his blasts. He was just behind them when Izuku and HItoshi jumped back onto solid ground, trailing Todoroki by only a few meters.

They came to a ten meter high wall next, with a few hand holds here and there, but they were spaced pretty far apart. There was no way around the wall; it forced challengers to go over it. Todoroki didn’t seem to be having any trouble, using his ice to make ledges to step on. Bakugou began to scale the surface by making small explosions that blew out bits of cement to make it easy for him. Izuku simply picked up Hitoshi and tossed him to the top of the wall. Hitoshi grabbed the top ledge and pulled himself up to sit at the top, then gave the signal for Izuku to jump. He jumped as hard as he dared with One For All and trusted Hitoshi to not let him overshoot. Once the were both at the top, Hitoshi hopped onto Izuku’s back while the smaller boy jumped down, absorbing the impact as much as his could. Their teeth still rattled, and Izuku’s legs ached, but they were off again, chasing the other two. 

The next obstacle was a blind maze. There were five separate openings leading into a wall with no light visible past any of them. Izuku chose a different door from the ones Todoroki and Bakugou disappeared into, tugging on Hitoshi’s arm.

“Come on!”

Hitoshi followed without hesitation. All he could see in the darkness was the faint outline of Izuku as he activated his quirk. A moment later, he heard a loud smashing sound, and felt dust and debris hit him.

“Cover your face, and stick as close to me as you can,” Izuku directed. “I don’t want to lose time trying to navigate. I’m going to try to punch our way out of here.”

Hitoshi did as he was told, and winced every time he heard a smash or a quiet curse coming from in front of him. What was this doing to Izuku’s unprotected hands and arms? It seemed to take ages, just moving forward wall by wall in a tunnel that Izuku was making. They finally burst into sunlight about a meter to the left of one of the exits, and blinked at the brightness as they dashed forward. They could vaguely hear the roar of the crowd and Present Mic and another low voice over the speakers, but it was muted. Izuku figured that the course was wrapped around the outside of the stadium, for the most part. The course had to be almost finished, didn’t it?

“Here they come!” Hitoshi said breathlessly.

Izuku glanced back and saw Todoroki and Bakugou only about ten meters behind them. They came to a wide open dirt field that looked like it had been freshly groomed. 

“This has to have a catch,” Izuku said, bringing a bloody hand to pinch his bottom lip as he considered. Todoroki and Bakugou also stopped for a moment, but didn’t pause for more than that. Todoroki created a chunk of ice and tossed it out in front of him. When nothing happened, he proceeded to move forward, repeating it again once he got to the place the first one had landed. A moment later Bakugou used twin explosions from his palms and took to the air to leap forward, taking his chances. Izuku was about to suggest they jump, too, when the second chunk of ice that Todoroki threw hit the ground and there was a large explosion that knocked Bakugou sideways off trajectory, and made him land near another apparent mine, tossing up backward with a litany of swear words. Todoroki had been knocked on his butt, but both boys got up and started moving again, more cautiously than before. 

“A freaking minefield?” Hitoshi groaned.

“I’m gonna try something,” Izuku said after a moment of thought.

Before Hitoshi could get out a word of question or protest, Izuku jumped high into the air and came down, glowing red lines criss-crossing over his body. He brought his already bloody and abused fists down on the edge of the field, causing a mini earthquake.

“Did you just…” HItoshi said as he fell to the ground from the tremor.

Izuku was gritting his teeth in what looked like a snarling smile as a chain reaction started. As the shockwave traveled outward from where they were situated at the edge, mines exploded in lines all the way across the field, all the way to the grass on the other side. Bakugou and Todoroki were both knocked down, with more swearing from the blonde as he got the brunt of the blasts from the three mines he was surrounded by. Todoroki looked disbelieving as he saw the wave of explosions coming toward him, them resigned as it moved too fast for him to try to evade or outdistance it. He was blown forward, and did his best to stay on his feet, but to no avail.

“Let’s go!” Izuku shouted, dragging Hitoshi to his feet and starting forward. He grimaced as he tried to run, in obvious pain.

“Are you okay?” Hitoshi asked, jogging beside him.

“I can still…” Izuku began, only to glaze over and slow to a stop.

“Climb on my back and let me carry you.” HItoshi commanded, feeling a twinge of guilt. 

Izuku didn’t waste any time in obeying, and Hitoshi took off running while the other boys were regaining their composure. He released his hold on Izuku once they were in motion, and felt hm stiffen against his back.

“Sorry, Zu,” he panted, pushing himself as hard as he could to keep ahead of the others. Izuku’s stunt had cleared the field (literally) for the other students beginning to catch up. If Iida was close behind, they could all be doomed. “I didn’t want to argue and lose time!”

“Just drop me and go! I can still come in fourth!” Izuku said, though he wasn’t making any move to push away from his friend. His ears were ringing, and he couldn’t hear much at the moment. They were maintaining good speed.

“As if,” Hitoshi puffed, not even slowing down.

“Get back here, you fucks!” Bakugou screamed at them from not far behind. 

“We’ve got Todoroki skating up on his ice, too!” Izuku said urgently.

The four boys entered the tunnel that led to the stadium and the finish line, the space too small for anything but running or skating. Each of them put on a last, adrenaline- fueled spurt of speed and crossed the finish line in a neck-and-neck grouping.

It wasn’t until Present Mic’s voice, practically screaming in his excitement, came blaring out of the commentator’s box, and speakers.

“**_First place is Shinou Hitoshi, second place is Bakugo Katsuki, third place is Midoriya Izuku, and fourth place is Todoroki Shouto! What an incredible finish! Take a look at that photo finish, folks!_**” 

On the giant screens around the stadium, an image appeared, even as more and more students were streaming into the arena behind them. Hitoshi was just barely a nose ahead of Bakugou, with Izuku passing the line just a fraction of a second before Todoroki. They had each placed within milliseconds of each other. Hitoshi fell to his knees, dropping Izuku unceremoniously onto the grass beside him, where they both collapsed onto their backs, breathing heavily. Todoroki was bent at the waist with his hands on his knees, his breath visible on the air, from the patches of ice that seemed to have formed on his right side. Bakugou was staring up at the screen with an angry scowl, wiping his sweaty face with the hem of his shirt. 

Izuku tuned out whatever Present Mic was shouting about; he was starting to feel the pain of the injury he had done to himself over the course of the race. He sincerely hoped that he would be allowed to see Recovery Girl before the next round, or he wasn’t going to last until the end of the competition. His hands were starting to clot, which meant he wasn’t bleeding as heavily as before, but he was pretty sure the had some fractures, there. The move he’d used at the minefield had been similar to the one he’d used to take down the zero point robot at the entrance exam. He’d been banking on the idea that he’d take less damage, since he was hitting a more forgiving surface than a solid steel robot. He was pretty sure he was right, since his legs and feet hurt, but didn’t feel broken. Definitely bruised to hell from pushing One For All at the limit of what he could handle, but probably not broken. Probably.

“Ow,” was all he said, and Hitoshi snorted out a tired, incredulous laugh.

Aizawa and the other first year teachers came out to check on their classes, which made Izuku very happy. He wasn’t sure he could move an inch without the promise of some relief, now that he was laying still, but his muscles were still jumping and twitching. His hands (particularly is knuckles) were throbbing in time with his heartbeat, which was only now starting to normalize.

“Hitoshi, get this problem child to the nurse’s office. You have thirty minutes to be ready for the next event. You’d better hurry; there’s likely to be line.”

Hitoshi nodded, then looked and saw other students starting to walk (or limp) toward the exit nearest Recovery Girl’s office. He climbed to his feet and offered a hand up to Izuku, asking, “You want me to carry you, again?”

Izuku allowed himself to be pulled to his feet, and tested his weight before shaking his head. “I can walk.”

There wasn’t the usual pep in his step, but he managed it without limping too badly. He was forcefully reminded that Hitoshi had saved him from not making it over the finish line at all, by carrying him the last length of the race. Thankfully, there were multiple nurses scurrying around administering first aid to those who didn’t need actual healing, so the wait wasn’t long. Recovery Girl looked less than pleased with Izuku, but didn’t have as much time to scold him as she probably wanted to, so he got away with a warning for all of the broken hand bones and hairline fractures in his legs.

They stopped by the prep room so Izuku could retrieve an energy drink from his locker, so he would be more alert until his adrenaline kicked in again for the next event. He grimaced at the taste; he bought the ones with the worst flavors so that he wouldn't be tempted to drink them unless he _really_ needed to. 

They made it out in time to hear what the next event would be. 

“_**EXTREME CAPTURE THE FLAG!”**_ Midnight called into her mic. The huge screens around the stadium sprang to life with an animation of a mountain with a flag on the top. Just then, there was a rumbling sound and what felt like a mild earthquake as the center of the area erupted and pushed upward, creating a huge mound of rock, dirt and cement in the center. A mini mountain would apparently be their course for this challenge. _**”Challengers will have to race each other to capture one of the flags! They must secure a flag and get back to the bottom without having it stolen to advance to the next event in the competition. The catch? There are only sixteen flags! That’s right! HALF of the competitors will be eliminated before it’s all said and done! It’s bound to be one WILD race! And just to make it interesting…” **_

Just then, a ring of black clouds formed over the man-made mountain, just above the stadium. All eyes were cast upward just in time to see a sheet of rain begin to fall, turning the dirt to mud and making everything a lot more difficult. There was a _**CRACK**_ of thunder that echoed around, competing with Present Mic’s bellow from the commenator’s box.

_ **”Look at that, ladies and gentleman! Our challengers are in for a tough time!”** _

Izuku and Hitoshi stared open-mouthed with the others at the playing field. When they finally looked at each other, Hitoshi told Izuku, “Looks like this is where we go our own ways! You’ll have a chance against Bakugou in this rain; his explosions won’t work as well.”

“Let me give you a boost, as least!” Izuku offered.

“Nah, you go ahead. I think I’ve got a plan. Just be sure to get yourself a flag, and don’t let anyone take it from you!” Hitoshi said, sounding relatively confident. 

The light had dimmed due to the clouds, casting a grey-ish tint to everything. It was kind of weird to see that those in the stands weren’t getting wet at all. A ring of light was projected down onto the field marking the boundaries they had to pass at the bottom of the mountain, with larger spotlights at regular intervals around it where the contestants would stand to begin. Each student stood in place, waiting for the signal to begin. Just as the horn sounded, a strong wind picked up, seeming to come from the peak, blowing downward on them. It was a struggle to move forward. 

Izuku push more One For All through his body and powered through the gale, trusting Hitoshi to take care of himself. His leaps were a bit wild, and he tumbled a couple of times on landing, being buffeted around. Visibility was pretty poor, so it was practically plain luck when he spotted a flag a couple of meters away after only five minutes of climbing.

“No you don’t!” came a voice from behind him. A mechanical tentacle zipped past him and snatched the flag, and retracted back to someone with what looked like pink hair who was wearing goggles. “My babies are the best, aren’t they?”

Izuku considered pursuing her, but she was obviously a support student, and could have pretty much anything in her arsenal to use against him. 

He spotted another flag a few meters upward and went after it, instead. It was slow going, but his hand finally closed around it. He tucked it under his shirt and made sure to zip his jacket around it, as well. Then he just _jumped_. The wind pushed him backward, and he used his gymnastics training to keep an eye on the ground. He wasn’t expecting to be tackled out of the air...no _smacked_... out of the air by an enormous hand. 

“Kendo?” he grated out as he hit a rock and slid in the mud. 

“Nothing personal, but I’m going to have to take that flag from you,” she said, pinning him down with a cage of palm and fingers surrounding him. 

“Nothing personal, but I hope Recovery Girl can fix this!” Izuku kicked out with One For All, making contact with the joint of her pinky finger. It was hard to get leverage in his position, but he managed. He couldn’t hear her cry of pain, but he could see her expression through her fingers as he heard the knuckle pop. He was still trapped, so he tried again. And again. She couldn’t get under his shirt unless she shrunk her hand down, and then he’d have an even better chance of escaping or defeating her. She flattened her hand more, curling her injured finger inward while still keeping Izuku penned in. That was all he needed. Reaching under his shirt, he found the flag and snapped the metal stick it was attached to, then concealed the flag again. “I’m really, really sorry about this,” he said, even though he knew she couldn’t hear him. 

Izuku took a deep breath and steeled himself for what he was about to do. He gripped the metal rod tightly in both hands, gauged his position, then _stabbed_ the rod into Kendo’s curled in finger, right beneath the nail bed. She shrieked loud enough for him to hear that time, and her hand was pulled back sharply. He wasted no time in leaping back into the air and down the rest of the way. He landed without any more injury, rolling with his momentum out of the boundaries and was marked “safe” on the scoreboard that was lit up under the commentator’s box. 

The rest of the screens showed different contestants battling for the remaining flags, but Izuku only cared about one. How was Hitoshi doing? He tried to see through the haze the rain was causing to see if he could spot him on any of the screens. So many contestants were covered in mud and waterlogged, that it was hard to tell who was who.

“Good work,” came a voice from behind him.

Izuku spun to see a drenched, but clean Hitoshi grinning at him and holding up his fingers in a ‘victory’ sign. “We both made it!” Izuku grinned back.

“I told you I had a plan!” Hitoshi said. “C’mon. We can go inside and get cleaned up while the rest battle it out.”

They walked inside to the locker room, where Izuku was able to wipe the mud off of his face, and a medic, checked out his scrapes and scratches. Other than that, he had a few bruises, but didn’t need to see Recovery Girl. Bakugou and Todoroki were also unscathed, though the blonde was as filthy as Izuku. Uraraka came in shortly after that, along with a few students from other classes. Soon, all sixteen were accounted for, and Izuku was glad to see that so many of his classmates had made it through to the final event.

“It’s going to take some time to clean all that up,” Hitoshi said. “Plus, it’s lunch break. Want to go find something to eat?”

Before Izuku could form an answer, none other than the number one hero, Endeavor walked into the locker room. His flames licked harmlessly at his face and chest, but made the room instantly warmer with his mere presence. He ignored all of the other students (some of whom were fans and looking starstruck) and approached Todoroki, moving into his personal space in what could only be described as an intimidating way.

“Shouto, stop this nonsense. You’re humiliating yourself.” the huge man grumbled. He wasn’t speaking loudly, but everyone in the room had stopped to stare, and it was quiet enough to hear his words.

“Stop _what_ nonsense, Dad?” Todoroki gritted out, showing uncharacteristic emotion. “I came in fourth in the first round, and was the first to get a flag in the second. I didn’t need you or your flames to do it.”

There were murmurs, then; many of the others hadn’t known until now that Todoroki’s father was the number one hero.

“You could have come in first in both events if you weren’t being so childish and used your fire. Let’s go somewhere we can talk privately,” Endeavor said, suddenly seeming to register that there were witnesses to their father/son moment.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Todoroki said in denial, “I’m going to win this without _your_ power.”

Izuku stood rooted to the spot. Did this mean what he _thought_ it meant? Did Todoroki actually have a strong fire quirk? Possibly as strong as his ice one? Why wasn’t he using it? Questions swirled inside his head, and his fingers twitched as if taking notes in the air until Hitoshi elbowed him in the side.

Todoroki pushed past his father, and stormed out of the room, and Endeavor took a deep breath, murmuring an off-hand, “Pardon the intrusion,” before turning to leave at a more sedate pace. He paused in front of Izuku and looked him up and down before grunting. “I’ve heard them talking about you in the stands. Some are saying your power is similar to All Might’s. I wouldn't go that far, but make sure to give Shouto a good challenge, so it’ll look even better when he wins. He’s going to be the next number one, if he can ever get over this rebellious phase.”

He didn’t wait for an answer, and Izuku didn’t have one to give. He waited until the man was gone and looked at Hitoshi. “What the hell?”

Hitoshi shrugged. “Family drama? Let’s go get lunch. I’m starving!”

Bakugou pushed past them, looking angry, probably because Endeavor hadn’t seen fit to issue a similar challenge to him. Uraraka and Iida both joined the two boys in their quest for lunch, Uraraka demanding to know how Hitoshi had gotten his flag so easily.

“I just walked up to a girl from support who had a flag and said, _’Nice job, you got a flag?’_ and when she said something about her babies, of all things, I took over and told her to give me her flag and then stand there and wait. After that, I just walked out of the boundary with the flag.”  
“Brilliant,” Izuku praised as they walked. “Good thinking!”

“Yes,” Iida agreed, though his expression seemed conflicted. “The best way to win a fight is to not get involved in one.”

As they walked, Izuku glanced down a corridor that led back to the field and caught sight of a familiar red and white head. “You guys go ahead. I’ll catch up, okay? Order me something filling if I’m not there by the time to get to the front of the line.”

Likely assuming he had to use the bathroom, they agreed and continued to walk toward the cafeteria. Izuku doubled back and approached Todoroki, who was leaning against the wall with his eyes closed. It seemed almost ridiculous how perfect the other boy looked, while Izuku himself looked like he’d been through a hurricane. Still, there were different types of ‘okay,’ and no knew that as well as Izuku did.

“Todoroki-kun?’ Izuku’s soft voice was easy to hear with the acoustics around them. “How are you doing? Are you alright after the fight with your dad?”

Todoroki opened his eyes and straightened his posture. “Did you know that Endeavor was my father before just now?”

“I had an idea of it. Gran - my guardian - told me he thought you were, because he remembers your dad taking you to hero stuff when you were little. He said it was a long time ago, though, so he wasn’t sure,” Izuku said honestly. “Do you really have a strong fire quirk? Why don’t you use it?”

“Do you know what quirk marriages are?” Todoroki asked suddenly. 

Izuku was confused for a moment by the change of subject, but nodded with a frown. “I think so. Families used to arrange marriages for their kids, hoping that any children would have a strong mixture of... _oh_.”

“Yeah. _Oh_. My dear old dad basically forced my mom into marriage because her family had a history of strong ice quirks. They were impressed by his wealth and fame and basically sold their daughter to him for the prestige so he could start his breeding program. You see, back when All Might was alive, my father was obsessed with beating him, but could never manage it. To him, the next best thing would be to have a kid who _could_ surpass the number one. That kind of breeding, with two strong quirks battling it out genetically, is hard on the mother carrying the baby. He forced her into seven pregnancies, but only four children were born. I was the last, and what he’d been waiting for; a perfect blend of both of their quirks. I’m his masterpiece, and he used to parade me around like a trophy before I became too ugly.”

“That’s...barbaric! Unethical!” Izuku gasped. Just hearing about it made his stomach turn. Did he really see himself as ugly? Had really been treated as nothing more than a tool his entire life? Hadn’t Endeavor realized that by the time his kid was old enough to be a hero, All Might would probably have been retired?

“It scarred my mother. She lost her sanity when I was six and scarred me in return,” he pointed to his left eye, and the angry red scar covering it. “She couldn’t stand to see his eye in her child’s face, and poured boiling water on it.”

“Holy shit,” Midoriya breathed. What else could he really say?

“So, you can see that Endeavor is basically no better than trash,” Todoroki said quietly, but with total conviction. “Now that All Might is gone and Endeavor is the number one, he’s determined to ‘keep it in the family’ and make sure we keep ‘producing’ the next number one heir. He’s trying to turn me into another version of himself. He’s worried that my refusal to use his fire will hurt my chances of him finding a suitable genetic match to force me to marry.”

“That’s...gross,” Midoiya admitted. “I can see your reasoning, but...shouldn’t you be using your _fire_ to spite him? Get better than he is with it, then refuse to follow through on his plans?”

“You don’t understand,” Todoroki said flatly. “That’s okay. You don’t need to understand. See you in the third event. Make sure you give it your all, okay?”

“I have no choice,” Izuku told him with equal conviction. “What happened to you was beyond terrible, but I have people to repay. I’ve been helped every inch of the way by people who worked just as hard as I did to get me to where I am right now, and I’m not gonna lose. Not to you, not to anyone. It’s the only way I can repay them for everything they’ve done for me. So _you’re_ the one that needs to give it your all.”

Todoroki stared at him for a moment before he turned and walked back in the direction of the field, leaving Izuku standing there, both stunned and angry. What kind of life had Todoroki been living? He turned and went to find his friends, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to eat after what he’d just heard. He nearly plowed into Bakugou as he turned the corner, and from the look on his former friend’s face, he’d heard everything.

“That wasn’t for your ears, you know,” Izuku told him. “Don’t go spreading it around.”

“As if. I don’t care about his daddy issues, no matter how fucked up they are,” Bakugou said, not denying that he’d been eavesdropping. “I’m just pissed that he’s been holding back on all of us, thinking he’s better than everyone. I can’t wait to prove that asshole wrong. He’s worried about beating the wrong person; he should be worried about _me_!”

Izuku just shook his head. Of _course_ that is what he’d take away from everything he’d just heard. He didn’t bother to reply, and hurried to the cafeteria, where his friends were just starting to eat. Iida plucked a large bowl of rice, tofu and vegetables from his own tray and set it in front of Izuku with a firm nod. 

“Filling and nutritious,” he said in his usual matter-of-fact tone.

“Thanks Iida,” Izuku said, forcing a smile he didn’t feel. “I can always count on you.”

Iida puffed a bit with pride, making Uraraka and Hitoshi smile at each other.

“Do you think they’ll have us facing off in one on one battles, now?” Uraraka asked, before taking a large bite of furikake rice and looking blissful at the taste.

“That’s the usual format,” izuku answered, taking a bite of his own lunch, in spite of his lack of appetite. He would never escape Iida’s watchful eye, making sure everyone was properly nourished and hydrated for the competition. “They’ll probably make a bracket, and the winner of each match will advance to the next round until there’s one winner. That’s what’s mostly happened in past Sports Festivals.”

“Mostly?” Uraraka asked, passing her orange juice over to Iida who had finished his in record time.

“There have been a few years where they broke with tradition and did group competitions with scoring being the deciding factor,” Hitoshi told her, remembering the hours of footage he and Izuku had watched in preparation for today. “And a couple of times, they threw everyone together for a last man standing type of event where they had to wear break-away belts, and if yours got pulled off, you were out of the competition. The most exciting is the one on one matches, though.”

“You seem to have studied this subject at length,” Iida said approvingly.

“When I didn’t make the hero course right away, my only hope was an outstanding performance here at the festival. If a Gen Ed student can make the podium, they can get promoted to the hero course,” Hitoshi explained.

“I had no idea that was possible!” Iida said wonderingly. “Though, it does make sense. The entrance exam isn’t exactly suited to all quirk types.”

“The first and only person to manage it was Aizawa Sensei,” Izuku said. “He managed to get into the hero course from Gen Ed by clawing his way to the top.”

Uraraka and Iida both stopped eating and _stared_ as Hitoshi and Izuku nodded.

“Whoa! That gives me even more respect for him than I had before! He’s amazing!” Uraraka said with excitement.

“Indeed! It would seem that our teacher has much more to offer us than I originally thought!” Iida said with a sharp air chop. “Midoriya, try to eat a little more. It is almost time to report back to the field! You need to keep up your energy!”

Midoriya looked down and realized that he’d only made a small dent in his food, and picked up his bowl to shovel in a couple more mouthfuls. Iida scolded him about taking more sensible bites while Uraraka and Hitoshi worked on finishing their meals at a less frenzied pace.

Soon there was a chime sounding in the cafeteria that signaled that they had ten minutes to get back. They emptied and returned their trays, bracing themselves for what they were about to face.


	12. Winners and Losers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second half of the Sports Festival, and an unexpected meeting or two...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG, you guys! I am absolutely FLOORED by the number of Kudos and comments I am getting! I am so happy! Thank you so much! Anyway, here is the second half of the Sports Festival...I hope I did it justice. A few more things happen than in cannon, but I just can’t help but punish the ones I love, I guess!

After lunch, Midnight gathered the remaining competitors and announced that the final event would be a series of head-to-head matches. They would be fighting on a raised platform, and the rules were very simple.

_**“Win by knocking your opponent out of the ring, immobilizing them or getting them to say they give up!” **_Midnight said enthusiastically,_**”Bring on the pain! Recovery Girl is on standby, so feel free to fight dirty! Ethics have no meeting in this round! Of course...no killing will be allowed. We’d stop you.”**_

There were a series of fun games and activities on the field for participants to play, if they wanted, while competitors prepared for the upcoming fights. For reasons Izuku didn’t understand, the girls from class were dressed like cheerleaders, but only half of them looked happy about it. Kaminari couldn’t stop laughing, so Izuku supposed it was some sort of prank he’d played on them. He didn’t have time to dwell on the frivolity going on around him, though. He was too busy trying not to stress out. There was a very real possibility that he was going to be facing off against HItoshi, or Uraraka, or Iida. How would that affect his performance? Would he really be able to go all out against a friend like that?

The moment the brackets were posted, the competitors rushed over to have a look. Shinsou’s luck was holding; his first match was against Nirengeki Shoda, a student in Class B, so there was a chance they didn’t know about his quirk. Bakugou looked intrigued when he was that he was paired against Uraraka (though she looked rather frightened by the prospect). Izuku was going to be facing someone named Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu, who appeared to have a similar quirk to Kirishima. If he was able to best him, and Todoroki bested his opponent, then he would face Todoroki second. The others were all sizing each other up before moving off to prepare and plan. He shared a fist bump with Tosh, who would be first, then left him to prepare.

In the prep room he’d been provided, Izuku sat going over everything he could remember about hardening quirks. He looked around the small room when he thought he heard a noise and had the feeling of being watched, but a moment later there was a knock, and Gran opened the door and poked his head in.

“How you doing, kid?”

“Gran!” Izuku’s face lit up. “Not too bad yet, but I feel like I’m gonna freak out if I have to fight Tosh.”

“What? You can beat Tosh easily,” Gran deadpanned.

“Graaaaaan,” Izuku groaned at the teasing. “You know what I mean.”

“Look, kid. You go out there and do your best. It don’t matter who you’re fighting. Hitoshi would be angry if you threw a fight or went easy on him, and you know it,” Gran said sternly. “Worry more about your first match up...that kid seems to be made of some kinda organic _steel_. Don’t end up breaking your hands _again_; find a way to throw him out of the ring.”

They talked strategy for a couple of minutes, then decided to go watch the next match, until it was Izuku’s turn. Sitting around thinking too much wasn’t helping him keep calm, and the more he could analyze the others in a fight, the better centered he’d be. Gran dropped him off in the student section, and Izuku found a place in the front row of his box to observe from. He was just in time to catch the first match.

To say that Hitoshi’s first match was anticlimactic was an understatement. No sooner had the signal been given to start, than Nirengeki turned and walked out of the ring with a glazed expression while his classmates shouted at him to stop. Once he was out of bounds, he came to his senses with no idea of what had just happened, he demanded a rematch. Midnight simply shook her head and gave Nirengeki a comforting pat on the head before declaring Shinsou the winner. 

Class 1-A cheered loudly at the win, and when he joined them in their box, Hitoshi was pounded on the back and hugged in congratulations. Izuku grinned widely, even as class 1-B glared and scowled in their direction. When Monoma Neito stuck his head over the wall to tell Hitoshi what a villainous quirk he had, Kendo took care of the matter by karate chopping him on the neck and hauling him off. 

“There’s something seriously wrong with that guy,” Sero said seriously. 

Izuku could only agree. However, the rude guy was quickly forgotten as Ashido and Aoyama took the field. Whoever won this match would be the person Hitoshi when up against next. The fact that both contestants knew about his quirk meant that he’d probably actually have to fight. The match was more interesting than anyone had been expecting, with Aoyama putting on a good show with his navel laser, staying as far from Ashido’s acid as possible. In the end, Ashido managed to get close enough to punch Aoyama in the jaw and flip his cape over his head to wrap him in it. Without being able to see, it was an easy matter for her to use her acid to make him slide right out of bounds, while holding his cape tightly around him.

“You’re up against Ashido in the next round!” Izuku told Hitoshi. “I hope you’ve done your homework!”

“I think you need to worry about yourself. You’re up next!” Hitoshi reminded him, giving him a shove toward the isle. 

Izuku startled, having lost track while taking mental notes, and hurried out onto the field, just as they finished clearing the acid away. Tetsutetsu was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, leaving small indentations on the grass. His steel like body must weigh quite a bit more than the average person’s. Height-wise, Izuku gauged that his opponent was only a couple of centimeters taller than him, so the difference in their reaches wouldn’t be that big. Izuku stretched, feeling the buzz of his earlier energy drink still in his system, but knowing it wouldn’t sustain him much longer. 

When the signal was given, they took their places on the field and bowed to each other before beginning. They circled each other at first, trying to get an idea of how the other moved. When that didn’t seem to be progressing, the crowd began to get restless and shout encouragement at them. When one particularly loud voice yelled to Tetsutetsu, he looked toward the student seating for a moment, and Izuku took his break in concentration for an opening. Engaging One For All, he zipped around behind him and jumped on the other boy’s back, hoping over balance him. That didn’t exactly go as planned. Tetsutetsu planted his feet and hardened his skin to steel-like solidity, then reached over his shoulder to make a grab for Izuku, who wasn’t quite quick enough to dodge. He got tossed a few feet away, rolling into the landing, facing the ssilvery-skinned boy.

Izuku jumped up and nodded to himself, muttering quietly as he tried to work out a strategy. He had a decent idea of what _wouldn’t_ work. Now, he had to do his best to find something… better than that. He had a sort of plan, but he wasn’t sure he could pull it off. He needed to lure Tetsutetsu into close quarters to try his theory, but he also needed to be near the edge of the ring. The best way to do that would to make himself look like an easy target, by standing close enough to the edge without actually putting himself in danger of stepping out of bounds. 

“Did you know we have someone with a quirk like yours in our class?” Izuku called to Tetsutetsu, taking a page from Monoma’s book. “It’s really similar, you know? Only, he must be better than you somehow, since he’s in 1-A.”

Izuku didn’t believe for a moment that the kids in the other class were any less capable than his, but he needed to provoke his opponent into moving closer. Apparently, that jibe hit a nerve.

“I’m ten times better than him!” Tetsutetsu called back, slamming his fists together in an uncanny mirror move to Kirishima’s. 

“Yeah? Prove it! Cause I can take him down, easy,” Izuku taunted. “Or are you not so sure you’ve got what it takes?”

“You little!” Tetsutetsu took the bait and charged, keeping his body a bit lower than Izuku would have liked. 

Izuku waited until Tetsutetsu was practically on top of him before dropping to his back and bringing up his knees with a _push_. The steely skinned boy, surprised by the move, tripped and landed his full weight on Izuku’s lower legs. With an, “_Oof!_” Izuku rolled backward, using his arms and hands against the ground for leverage. He strained with effort, under the extreme weight and lifted his opponent into the air in a slow motion flip, Tetsutetsu’s arms and legs flailing wildly in an attempt to free himself. Tetsutetsu landed face up on the ground with his heels resting outside the boundary line. Even as both boys jumped to their feet, neither knowing that the boundary had been crossed, Midnight called out, “_**MIdoriya Izuku from class 1-A is the winner!**_”

Both boys looked up at the screens to see the last moments replayed. Tetsutetsu’s shoulders sagged in defeat, and Izuku approached and offered him a hand.

“Good work,” Izuku said kindly. “I didn’t mean what I said earlier. You have a great quirk, I was just trying to rile you up and get you to make a mistake.”

Tetsutetsu eyed the hand for a moment before shaking it. “You, too. You’re stronger than you look!”

Izuku laughed at that, and they walked off the field together with no hard feelings.

“Way to go! You made it through a whole match without hurting yourself!” Hitoshi snarked at him as he rejoined his classmates.

“Wait,” Izuku said, his expression taking on a pained look. Others were looking at him in concern. “There’s this pain...in my BUTT!” Then he pointed right at Hitoshi and everyone groaned out a laugh and rolled their eyes.

“Seriously, though, good job!” Kaminari said. “That dude must weigh at least a hundred and fifty kilograms!”

“It sure felt like it,” izuku agreed.

“Todoroki and Sero are up next!” Hagakure said excitedly.

Just two minutes later, everyone was leaning backward in silence, with a jagged wall of ice hanging over them. They couldn’t see the field, but they could hear the obvious outcome as it was announced. Todoroki had beaten Sero with ease. Izuku gulped audibly as he realized that he would be facing someone capable of _this_ in the next round. They evacuated the box, crouched low to avoid the ice to wait for it to be cleared out. Most of the people in that portion of the stadium filed out of the stands to seek a safer (warmer) place to wait until the next match. 

“Uraraka and Bakugou are up next,” Izuku said to Hitoshi. “I want to go see if she’s alright. Give her a few ideas, if she wants them.”

“You go ahead. I think Iida is freaking out, too. He just got up and ran out just before the ice wall came up. I’m gonna go see if I can find him.”

They bumped fists and parted ways, Izuku making his way to the prep rooms. He found Uraraka sitting at a table stiffly, looking nervous.

“Hey, Midoriya,” she greeted him, trying to sound cheerful. 

“So...Bakugou,” he said, approaching the table. “He’s a tough one, but not impossible to beat. Do you have a plan? I can help, if you want.”

“Thanks, but I think I know what I’m going to do, actually. You’re brilliant and all, but I’ve gotta start pulling my own weight and making some decisions for myself!” He cheeks were pink, and her eyes determined.

“Good! I’ll be cheering for you! Don’t stop until you’re proud, okay? You’ve got this!”

He left her to finish her preparation, and wandered toward the locker room, thinking of indulging in another energy drink. The feeling of someone watching him was still making the hair on the back of his neck prickle, but when he stopped to look, he didn’t see anyone around. He had to focus! Fighting against Todoroki was going to be no joke, and he would need the extra boost the energy drink would provide, since the drain of being healed earlier was catching up with him. 

Just as he was about the push the locker room door open, he was tackled out of nowhere by someone he couldn’t see.

“I’ve got you now, you little shit! You’re finally on your own without freaking people everywhere to protect you!” The voice was right next to his ear, and he could feel the hot breath against his face.

“What the hell? Who are you?” Izuku couldn’t see much from where his face was being mashed into the floor, but didn’t dare move, because it felt like there was a blade against his neck very near his carotid. Someone was sitting on his upper back with their knees digging into his upper arms. There was a hand on the back of his head, holding it down, and the other hand was presumably holding a knife of some kind.

“You couldn’t just mourn your damn mother and let things be,” the man spat angrily. “You had to blame Yu-chan for doing her fucking job!” He gripped Deku’s hair tightly and slammed his head against the ground again, straining his neck and upper back. “ She saved people from that giant villain, and what did she get for it? A six month fucking suspension? Because you have mommy issues?”

The man was breathing heavily, spittle flying with every word. He was gripping Izuku’s hair tightly, making a bright spot of pain on his scalp. Izuku realized that this must be the fake reporter - the man he had promised to keep and eye out for and be careful of. His blood ran cold at the mention of his mother, and then hot at the casual dismissal of her life and his own pain. Izuku’s vision was turning red, and he could feel One For All straining to be let loose in his anger. It would be easy to just smash this guy into a stain on the wall; so easy to just throw him off and teach him a lesson he obviously needed to be taught. Izuku’s fists were balled up and his muscles coiling in his preparation to put his thoughts into action. He was lifting himself off the ground, a millisecond from doling out some punishment, when a voice stopped him and brought him back to his senses.

“What’s going on there? Are you sick?” It was a woman’s voice. “Hey’ there’s a kid on the ground here! Call a medic!”

Footsteps were rushing closer, and the blade moved away. Izuku remembered that the man had a chameleon quirk that let him hide in plain sight. Instead of crushing him as he was about to do, Izuku brought his legs up over his back like a scorpion tail to wrap around the villain from behind, holding him in place and keeping him from sneaking away.

“Careful! He’s got a knife!” Izuku shouted. “And he’s got a camouflage quirk!”

Deku could see the legs of those approaching now, but the man still had his hair in a tight grip, preventing him from seeing if he was indeed the fake reporter. 

“Shut up, brat!” The villain knocked Izuku’s head into the ground with a _thunk_, then removed that hand from his head, and plunged the knife that had been at his neck into his shoulder. He twisted the knife, just to add insult to injury, but remained unable to flee.

The pain made Izuku cry out briefly in pain, but it also spurred him into action. In a motion borne of muscle memory from his mixed martial arts training, he used his clamped legs around the villain’s middle to slam his assailant backward, hitting the man’s head and shoulders against the ground and pinning him there..

“Where the hell did that guy...Oh my God, kid, are you alright?” It was a male voice this time, and suddenly Kamui Woods’ masked face came into Izuku’s line of vision. “Stay put. A medic is coming, but I’m going to need to put pressure on this to stop the bleeding.”

Izuku was stunned. One minute he’d been looking to sneak an energy drink, and less than five minutes later, he had a knife in his back and psychopath blaming him for Mt. Lady’s suspension. He grunted when Kamui Woods pressed something soft against his burning shoulder, and tried to breathe evenly. 

“Yu-chan! You’re here! Thank God, you’re here! I tried to take care of that brat for you, but got interrupted. I’ll get him next time, and you’ll never have to worry about him or anyone trying to ruin your career again.” The villain’s voice had turned simpering and love-struck.

“I ruined my _own_ career,” came the female’s stern voice from earlier. “Are you the one who’s been sending me all those gross letters?”

“You got my letters!” the man sounded entirely enraptured. “I knew you would read them! We were meant for each other! I won’t let anyone get in your way…”

“Thanks Kam,” Mt. Lady’s voice said when the man’s voice was cut off to an indistinct mumbling from behind a woody vine gag. Her voice turned into a sad tone. “Looks like I owe this kid more than one apology.”

“Perhaps that can wait,” Kamui Woods advised. “He appears to be hyperventilating.”

“Let me help,” came a voice Izuku just managed to recognize while he was trying to suck in air and calm his heart as the panic attack clawed at his mind, trying to take control. Todoroki. He struggled to sit up, and though the others protested, Todoroki helped him, keeping his hands on Izuku’s shoulders while Kamui Woods tried to keep pressure on the wound in his back. 

“Take three deep breaths,” Todoroki said calmly. 

Izuku struggled to comply, his eyes sliding over to Mt. Lady. Just a meter away was the woman responsible for his mother’s death. An apology? Did she say an _apology_?

“Don’t look at her, look at me. Tell me three things you can see. Focus on _me_ and tell me three things you can see, Midoriya.”

Medics arrived then, but Todoroki was holding Izuku’s focus. “Um...your eyes. They’re different colors. Cool. Your hair, also different colors. Your...your scar.”

Izuku could feel himself calming, though his pulse was still racing. He couldn’t quite forget that Mt. Lady was just behind him. But...she’d just tried to help him, hadn’t she? He didn’t know how to feel. He felt vulnerable. He felt scared. He felt the searing pain in his back… as if he could read his mind, Todoroki persisted.

“Tell me three things you can feel.”

“Pain in my back. It burns. Your hands on my shoulders. Warm and cool. My heartbeat. Fast.” Mt. Lady wasn’t a threat to him. Not really. It was just anger and confusion that had him panicking.

“Three things you can hear.”

“My heartbeat. It’s loud. Your voice. People talking around me.” Just anger...but he’d been angry before. Nothing had changed.

“Three things you can smell.”

This one was harder, and took more concentration. Izuku took a deep breath intending to seek out scents, but it helped to calm his breathing as well.

“Myself...sweat and blood. Something spicy, like...incense? After shave? It’s nice. There’s popcorn being made nearby.” He was managing sentences with more than two or three words. That was a good sign.

“Good.” Todoroki kept his hands in place for a moment longer, looking into Izuku’s eyes to be sure the panic had ebbed, then dropped them. 

“Thank you,” Izuku told him sincerely.

Todoroki just nodded and moved back out of the way.

The medics moved forward and began to examine Izuku, helping him into a wheelchair so that they could take him to Recovery Girl without jostling the knife handle jutting out of his shoulder. He hadn’t even realized that the blade was still embedded. Police were already on the scene, since security had been heightened due to a serial killer on the loose that was targeting heroes. Izuku was already being questioned when Aizawa and Gran burst into the medical tent, set up close to the stadium for convenience during the final rounds. Izuku had already been healed (after police took pictures and confiscated the knife), and was yawning widely. HItoshi followed soon after looking dismayed.

“Zu! Iida never showed for his fight, so Kaminari won by default. You’ve got to be out there in five minutes if you want to compete! I don’t think they’ll wait for you!” Then he took in all of the cops and heroes and realized that something bigger than he expected was going on. When he’d heard that Izuku was with Recovery Girl, he’s just assumed he was getting double checked after his last round of healing. “What’s going on? Did something happen?”

“I’m coming!” Izuku went to jump up, and several hands caught him at once, and pushed him back onto the exam table.

“You were just stabbed, young man! Your body is still healing!” Recovery Girl scolded him.

“I’m fine!” Izuku protested, even while other voices protested and Hitoshi was demanding to know what was going on. “I’ll come back and answer all the questions you want and sleep for three days, if you want. AFTER.” He turned wide, pleading eyes on Gran and Aizawa, both of whom wore identical expressions of long-suffering and resignation. “_Please._”

“Go,” Aizawa said gruffly, bracing himself as the wrath of Recovery Girl turned on him.

Izuku didn’t wait to hear more, and darted out of the room, with Hitoshi right behind him. “Dude, you were stabbed? I only left you alone for, like, ten minutes!”

“I know. I’ll tell you about it once I’m done here,” Izuku promised as he dashed out onto the field to thunderous applause and cheering. The crowd hadn’t liked the idea of two contestants defaulting in the final rounds, and was happy to see Izuku appear, even if a little late, and with his upper torso wrapped in bandages.

“You’d better!” Hitoshi said as he was forced to back away from the field and shooed toward the stands.

Izuku rushed up the steps to the competition ring, bowing a stiff apology to Midnight and Cementos. Todoroki wore no expression other than a raised eyebrow that told of his surprise. 

“Are you ready to fight?” Midnight asked him quietly, away from the microphone. “I heard on thing comm link that you’d been attacked.”

“Yeah. I got stabbed in the back by some crazy guy. Recovery Girl fixed me up. I’m good to go.” Izuku said, glad to feel his adrenaline giving him some much needed energy (he’d never gotten the drink he’d been after). When he finally did go down, he was probably going to have to make good on his promise to sleep for three days.

“If you’re sure…” She gave the thumbs up, and Present Mic made the introductions of the opponents. He and Todoroki bowed to each other before taking fighting stances.

“I’m not going to hold back, just because you were injured.” Todoroki warned him. 

“You’d better not. I’m in it to win it,” Izuku told him with a nod.

The signal to start was given, and the fight began. Izuku’s suspicion that Todoroki would come at him with his ice immediately proved to be well placed. The other boy put a foot forward and Izuku could see spikes of ice crawling over the ground toward him at a frighteningly fast pace. He held steady, bracing himself against the ground as he flicked a finger out with as much of One For All as he could. The ice exploded around him, raining everywhere like shrapnel from a land mine, and Izuku’s finger was already purpling from instant bruising. He didn’t have time to think about it, though, because a second attack was following the first. Using another finger flick with a different finger, he sent the second attack the same way as the first.

“I thought you said you weren’t going to hold back!” Izuku shouted at him! 

“You’re just prolonging the inevitable, Midoriya. You’re tired, you’re injured, and you’re not as strong as I am,” Todoroki called back. “I’ll end this quickly for you.”

“You wish!” This time, Izuku dodged the attack by jumping clear of it, but once he was airborne, Todoroki fired off another round of ice that encased his foot enough that he had to punch himself free of it. “You’re going to have to do better than that!” 

They played something of a game of cat and mouse, with Todoroki attacking with ice, and Midoriya blasting it with finger flicks, punches and kicks. The crowd certainly seemed to approve of the action, but Izuku was getting frustrated. He needed to get in close to land a blow; all he’d been able to do so far was defend. He was pretty sure the ice was coming slower now, not just in regularity, but in velocity. Todoroki must have a limit, and it might be closer than Izuku thought. That huge glacier he’d used against Sero might have taken more out of him than anyone realized. He took a chance and darted forward, around several quick shots of ice, and got in close to Todoroki, giving him a feint to the face, and jabbing him in the solar plexus instead. If he could stay in close, he might be able to keep in his comfort zone with hand to hand combat.

Todoroki was a skilled fighter, but now that they were face to face, Izuku could see that the other boy was shivering. Frost was forming on his arm and face, and frostbite could be a danger before long, if Izuku was any judge. Souto’s reflexes were suffering because of all the ice he’d created, and Izuku could read the frustration in his moves and expression.

“You told me you wouldn’t hold back. You said you’d give it your all!” Izuku accused as they traded blows. “Use your fire! You’re giving yourself hypothermia and crippling yourself!”

“I will not use _his_ quirk!” Todoroki roared, using his ice to drive Midoriya a few meters backward. “I’ll win without it!”

“You’ll _lose_ without your fire. YOUR fire! Not HIS! It’s YOUR power, Todoroki! And you’re letting him _take_ it from you!”

Izuku stomped the ground _hard_, wincing as he did so, but sending a tremor that made Todoroki almost lose his balance. He saved himself from falling backward by producing a wall of ice to steady his body.

“Everyone here is giving their all in this tournament! Everyone but YOU! You think I’m going to let you win using only half your power? Even with all of the ice you’ve thrown at me, you still haven’t hurt me at all!” (He didn’t need to mention that his bruised and possibly fractured fingers and let were his own doing.) “Give me everything you’ve got, or GET OUT!”

Todoroki stood there for a moment, breathing hard, his face a mask of rage and conflict. Izuku could see the moment Shouto made his decision as he grinned ferally. Steam rose in tendrils from the ice melting off of Todoroki’s skin and clothes. 

“You’re crazy, you know that?” Todoroki told him as fire erupted over his entire left side. “You want to win, but you’re out here asking me to get stronger than you while we fight!”

Izuku said nothing. He was pretty much at the end of his energy and stamina, and needed to end this in the next move, one way or the other. He braced himself for one last attack, fisting his bruised and bleeding hands as he rushed forward, just as Todoroki did the same. They were set to meet head on when Izuku hit a wall...literally. A cement wall slid up in front of him, and he plowed right into it, fist first. Then into another, and what felt like another, before there seemed to be an explosion that sent him flying backwards in what felt like slow motion. There was debris flying around on all sides, which was confusing, since none of it was hot or icy. Then, his back hit something hard before he lost his grip on consciousness.

“...Of course he has,” Recovery Girl’s voice registered in his ears and sounded aggravated. “I can’t do anything to speed up the healing until he’s had some rest. You can’t draw water from an empty well.”

“Where?” Izuku managed to croak.

“Thank heavens,” Uraraka breathed from where she was perched at his bedside.

“Zu? How do you feel?” Hitoshi asked.

Both figures looked fuzzy to Izuku’s half-closed, heavy-lidded eyes; it was a struggle to keep them open at all. “Like I got my ass kicked,” he managed to rasp out quietly. “Thirsty.”

A moment later, Recovery Girl appeared in his line of sight and slipped some ice chips into his mouth. “This should help. Your IV will get you hydrated, and I’ve got pain killers on board. You need to sleep and regain some energy so I can use my quirk on you. You’ll be staying here, tonight.”

“Okay,” was all he could manage to say before he slipped back into a deep sleep.

When Izuku next woke, it took him a few moments to remember where he was and, more importantly, why. He opened crusty eyes and groaned when he tried to shift his body. Was there a part of him that _didn’t_ ache? His eyelashes, maybe? The sound of a light snore had him turning his head to see Gran on a bed next to his, fully clothed with a book on his chest and his reading glasses perched on his nose. He must have stayed the night, as well, to make sure Izuku wasn’t alone. His expression softened and his heart swelled a little to see how much Gran actually cared and looked after him.

He was about to doze off again when there was a sound to his right, and he turned his head to see Recovery Girl shuffling out of her office looking tired and holding a steaming cup of tea.

“You’re finally awake, I see,” She said in a soft voice, trying not to wake Gran. “How do you feel? Rested?”

“I’m rested, but I hurt all over. What happened at the end of the fight? I mean, I know I lost, but…” Izuku said, equally quietly.

“Cementos had to stop the fight before you killed each other,” Recovery Girl told him with a disapproving sniff. “Foolish, if you ask me. Instead of letting you two kids collide, they thought it would be better to let you ram into a couple of cement walls! Then, with the air being super chilled, the sudden heat from Todoroki’s quirk made the cold air expand and it caused an explosion, or sorts. You were blown out of bounds, and Todoroki won.”

“It was bound to happen, once I got him to use his fire,” Izuku lamented with a sigh. “I could have done without the walls or the explosion, though.”

“You can say that again. I had to do minor surgery on your right hand; two of your fingers were shattered and bone fragments were stuck in your joints. It’ll scar, and they might be permanently crooked, which will hopefully remind you not to act so recklessly in the future!”

Izuku looked down hat his heavily bandaged hand and nodded. The pain was pretty intense, since the pain killers had apparently worn off while he was sleeping. He didn’t ask for more, since he’d be healed in a few minutes, anyway.

“And just so you know, after today, I’m not going to be healing injuries you get from being reckless. You need to learn to solve your problems without breaking your body.” she said sternly.

“Quit harpin’ on the kid and heal him already,” Gran groused, sitting up with a scowl and tucking his glasses away.

“You need to quit coddling him!” she said, turning her ire on him, as well. “How will he learn other coping methods if you rush him in here every time he gets hurt?”

Apparently satisfied that she’d properly scolded them both, she kissed Izuku firmly on his forehead. Muscles he hadn’t even realized were tight began to unravel, and the pain seeped away like water flowing down a drain. He let out a sigh of relief, and though he felt tired again, he didn’t feel like he needed to sleep more. Once he realized that it was Sunday, and that Recovery Girl had been forced to stay at the school on her day off, he felt guilty. He would have to see about getting her a gift in thanks. Maybe a bag (or five) of the gummies she was always giving out?

“Come on Gran, Recovery Girl is right...I need to do better,” Izuku said contritely. “Let’s let her enjoy her day off.”

Gran grunted - the closest as he would come to giving an apology. They got most of his bandages removed and gathered their things, then left the school, let out through the front gate by a security guard. 

They spent the rest of the morning resting, and Hitoshi came over to watch YouTube videos of all of the Sports Festival matches. Izuku marveled at how crazy it had all been, in retrospect. They didn’t have school on Monday because of the need to clean up and dismantle thing from the Sports Festival, so Hitoshi was spending the night. He told Izuku that Aizawa had warned them that they would have scouting reports from the pros who had been watching the matches and events.

They got to watch the matches from multiple angles, since so many people around the stadium had recorded them. Hitoshi had lost to Ashido, who had refused to be goaded into falling for the brainwashing trigger. She had basically used her acid to make a slippery trail out of the ring, and had slipped her opponent out after throwing the mild acid at his face, blinding him temporarily. “I totally panicked when I felt the acid start irritating my eyes,” Hitoshi admitted. “It’s a really good thing I got into the hero course when I did, because I didn’t make it to the podium.”

“I wonder why Iida didn’t show up for his match,” Izuku said with concern. “That’s definitely not like him.”

“He said it was a family emergency,” Hitoshi told him. “He told me and Uraraka before he left. He said a villain attacked his brother. He’s not answering any texts; both Uraraka and I tried.”

Gran, who’d been in the kitchen fixing them lunch, came out just then and said, “His brother was hurt pretty badly. He’s going to be in the hospital for a while. I heard it from Tsukauchi, but he couldn’t tell me much more about it.”

“Oh, no! Iida idolizes his brother! That must’ve really sent him into a panic,” Izuku said sadly. “I hope he’s okay.”

“You’ll probably need to give him some space,” Gran advised. “Just let him know you’re there for him if he needs it.”

Both boys nodded solemnly, and Izuku wondered if Gran knew more about than he was willing to share. They went back to watching videos, but without the same excitement as just a few minutes before. Izuku had been amazed by Uraraka’s frankly brilliant plan to defeat Bakugou, even if it hadn’t worked out, and wished he had been able to see it in person. In the end, Bakugou had defeated Todoroki (who had again refused to use his fire) to win the entire tournament. Bakugou had remained in a rage through the closing ceremony, trying to refuse the medal, because he hadn’t been satisfied with the final fight.

They discussed it all over lunch, Gran adding input about what he had observed from the stands. Hitoshi had been freaked out that Izuku had been attacked by the weird fake reporter, and apologized twice for not being there, even though Izuku assured in it wasn’t his fault.

They were just finishing their meal when the doorbell rang. Gran got up and checked the door camera before disappearing down the hall to the entry. He returned a few moments later and cleared his throat.

“Kid, you have a visitor. Takeyama Yu is here, and is asking for a chance to apologize to you.”

Izuku froze. He had a deer-in-the-headlights look for a moment before Hitoshi nudged him. “You don’t have to, you know. You can say no.”

Izuku paused a moment more before slowly shaking his head. “I’d like to talk to her alone, if that’s alright.”

“We’ll be in here, taking care of the dishes,” Gran said. There were only three plates and a cutting board to wash, since they’d had sandwiches, but they could keep themselves busy to give them privacy.

Izuku made his way nervously to the genkan, wiping damp hands on his pants as he approached. She wasn’t in her Mt. Lady garb today. She wore no makeup, her hair was in a simple knot on the back of her head, and her clothes were plain and modest.

“Please…” Izuku cleared his throat and tried again. “Please come in.”

“Thank you,” she replied, seeming equally nervous. She stepped out of her shoes and into the guest slippers before following him to the living room.. She took a seat where he indicated, and waited until he sat down before she spoke again. “Thank you for allowing me to offer you an apology.”

He nodded, and swallowed against the lump in his throat. His eyes flashed over to the small altar with the pictures of his parents and thought about how quick his mother probably would have been to be gracious.

“The first thing I want to apologize for is that it took me so long to come and speak to you. I wanted to make sure that I could actually follow through on the things I need to, to make sure that my apology actually has meaning. You deserve that. Your...your mother deserves that.”

Takeyama’s voice was thick, as though she had a lump of her own in her throat.

“Thank you,” Izuku murmured, glad that she took her apology so seriously.

“My most important apology is for my inexcusable actions during my debut appearance. I was absolutely not thinking of anything but making a flashy and appealing entrance, and I allowed that mindset to make me reckless. I...I can’t even begin to imagine the depth of the pain I’ve caused you. I’ve wished so many times that I could turn back the clock and erase what happened; that I could have handled it differently and spared those lives. I want you to know that the six month suspension I received because of my poor judgement was spent seriously studying and taking steps to make sure that I am never again the cause of another civilian losing their life it can be avoided in any way.”

She paused there and took a deep breath, letting Izuku absorb everything.

“I also want you to know that I am working with some other heroes to put together an official foundation funded by heroes and their agencies. Any families affected by the death of a loved one or displaced by a tragedy involving hero activity can apply for aid, financial, physical and psychological.”

“That’s… wow,” Izuku breathed. He had been prepared to be bitter, angry or even panicked over listening to what she had to say, and now he was left feeling… grateful. He felt lighter, knowing that she had taken it all to heart and actually taken the initiative to _do_ something... not just for him, but for others who might end up like him in the future. 

“It really is the least I can do,” she said, sounding sincere. “I will understand if you feel you can’t forgive me, but I hope you will.”

Izuku nodded slowly. “I never thought I’d ever want to see you or hear your name ever again,” he said quietly. “I thought I would hate you for...forever. But...thank you. I didn’t know how much I really needed to hear that. My therapist said that forgiving someone could be healing, but I didn’t really believe it, deep down. Now? Hearing you say that you’ve really, _really_ considered it all and are trying to help people like me...it makes me want to accept your apology.”

He was a little shocked to see tears well in her eyes as he said this. “Thank you,” she murmured quietly. “I’m going to work hard every day to deserve it.”

Izuku nodded and sat awkwardly for a moment, unsure of what to do at this point. Apparently, though, Takeyama wasn’t finished.

“I also want you to know that I am going to be visiting all of the other families I’ve hurt and do my best to apologize to all of them, as well. I’ll be offering them any help they need. I...My agency sent you a letter a while ago, offering you any help you might need, but your guardian said that you didn’t need anything that we could provide. I hope that if you ever _do_ need anything, you’ll let me know. I’ll do my best to help.”

Izuku nodded, remembering the letter he’d thrown away without opening. Gran must have opened it and dealt with it all without involving Izuku during the worst of his grief.

“I’ll remember that,” Izuku said, wondering how many things Gran had really handled for him that he knew nothing about.

“The final thing I wanted to apologize for was the attack you suffered during the Sports Festival. I had no idea that that man was so dangerous, but I didn’t take his letters seriously or report him to authorities. It made me wonder if I had, he might not have been so bold.”

“He wrote you letters? Did he say he was going to attack me in them?” Izuku asked with a sort of detached fascination.

“No!” She waved her hands frantically in denial. “If he’d threatened anyone I _definitely_ would have reported him to the police! I don’t even know how he found out about your involvement in my suspension; all victims’ names were redacted from the records released to the public to protect them. You. He just wrote creepy poetry and love letters. The police are investigating, and that man is in jail, now. They’ll probably be wanting to take a full statement from you in the next few days about it. I hope he didn’t traumatize you too badly; I was at a loss for what to do when you…” she trailed off, unsure.

“Had a big, whopping panic attack,” Izuku finished for her, not unkindly. “I have them sometimes in moments of intense distress. I’m working on it, and getting better.”

“I’m sorry that I played any part at all in causing you even more pain,” she said sincerely. “I want to thank you for agreeing to listen and allowing me to apologize.”

She stood then, and bowed politely. “Please remember that you can call my agency at any time if there’s anything at all I can do to help you.”

Izuku nodded and saw her to the door, then leaned against it with a shaky sigh once she was gone. That was something he definitely hadn’t been expecting to happen today, and he felt emotionally drained.

“Everything okay, kid?” Gran asked, coming out of the kitchen with Hitoshi at his heels. Even Gran’s ancient and very grumpy cat appeared to twist around Izuku’s feet and let out a strangled _meow_ that sounded concerned.

“Yeah,” Izuku said with a small smile. “I think everything is going to be okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SLEEP DEPRIVATION MUSINGS: I am sadly incapable of drawing more than stick figures, but I got it in my head that it would be funny to see someone draw a comic or Izuku in the four seasons: Spring - light green hair, summer- his usual green hair, autumn - his hair starts changing colors (yellow, red, orange) then starts to fall out, then in winter he is bald, or has snow on his head. Sorry. I am very, very sleep deprived right now. I’mma go giggle myself to sleep.


	13. Offers and Decisions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pros were watching and now it's time to choose hero names and decide on internships!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Work has been kicking my ass, lately. I haven't had the time to write that I'd like, but I only have to work one job a day next week, so hopefully I will be able to get caught up!

The next day was a rainy one. On the train, Izuku and Hitoshi had been congratulated on their performance at the Sports Festival by complete strangers. It had been a bit of a surreal experience, but a nice one, nonetheless.

At school, Izuku, Hitoshi and Uraraka arrived a little early to talk to Iida before class. He had finally answered their texts and said that he would be at Yuuei bright and early as usual, and they wanted to be there to offer him their support in person. He actually ended up catching up with them, wearing a poncho and rain boots, urging them to hurry to class, even though they had plenty of time.

“Thank you all for worrying about me, but I promise you, I’m perfectly fine. Tensei being injured was a huge shock, but we’re dealing with it. I appreciate your concern.”

“If you’re sure…” Uraraka didn’t look convinced as she said it.

“Quite sure. Thank you.” 

Iida’s words were calm and even tinged with his usual cheer, but Izuku couldn’t shake the feeling that he was hiding something from them. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly what was making him uneasy about their friend until after lunch, when Hitoshi pointed it out.

“Have you noticed that Iida’s very...stiff...today? I know that sounds weird about a guy who always seems like he’s going to start dancing the robot, but he hasn’t karate chopped the air even once today, that I’ve seen.”

“You’re right!” Uraraka said, realizing that she hadn’t seen it either. “Now I’m even more worried about him.”

“He’s really closed off, though,” Izuku said. “Don’t you feel like you _can’t_ ask about it without being really insensitive? Like, more than the situation calls for?”

“Yeah,” Hitoshi said with a frown. “Something besides just being sad or angry is really eating at him.”

“Let’s just make sure we let him know that he can talk to any of us, any time,” Uraraka said sincerely. “What else can we do?”

All of them kept a closer watch on their friend for the remainder of the day, trying not to be too obvious about it. As promised, in Hero Training class, there were some important announcements.

“Today, you’ll be picking your hero names,” Aizawa told them. He ignored the burst of cheering the followed that statement and continued, “But first, the draft pick I told you about the other day.”

The class quieted down almost instantly, and an air of tension blanketed the room.

On the board, a projection appeared listing the names of the students who had gotten offers from pro hero agencies, and the number of offers they had received. Izuku marveled at the fact that Todoroki and Bakugou got literally _thousands_ of offers. He heard Yaoyorozu congratulate Todoroki, but he merely shrugged it off and said it was due to his father’s influence. Izuku himself had gotten a respectable amount of offers, and would have some research to do before deciding on any. He wanted to consult Gran about it, too. Hitoshi had about two dozen offers, which he looked satisfied with, if his relaxed posture and small smile was anything to go by. Even Iida, who had needed to leave the festival early, had gotten a fair amount of offers. Uraraka looked both relieved and pleased at her numbers and was shaking Iida’s shoulder roughly in her excitement. 

“There’s usually more of a spread,” Aizawa told them, “but it seems like our top two stole the show.”

“Bakugou finished first, but got less offers than Todoroki, _kero_.” Asui pointed out.

“Probably because Bakugou threw such a huge tantrum that he had to be _restrained_ at the closing ceremony,” Sero pointed out sagely. “They’re probably scared.”

“What the hell do pros have to be scared of?” Bakugou shouted angrily.

“Hmmm… I wonder!” Hitoshi whispered, making those around him who heard, grin.

“With that settled, You’ll all have a chance to work with a pro hero, whether you got an offer or not. Seeing the pros in action and working alongside them is an important experience you can’t afford to miss out on.” Aizawa said. “Those who didn’t get offers will choose from this list of forty agencies or heroes willing to take on interns. List your top three choices, in case the first ones fall through.”

“That’s where our hero names come in!” Sato said, looking pumped up.

“This is starting to get fun!” Uraraka said.

“The names you choose are only tentative for now, but I still want you to choose wisely,” Aizawa said.

“Or there’ll be HELL to pay!” Midnight admonished loudly as she threw the door open and stepped in. As usual her hero outfit struck Izuku as pretty inappropriate to wear around kids. It probably wouldn’t be too bad, if not for the handcuff and flogger she carried and wore everywhere. “The name you choose now could very well be what the world decides to call you from now on. It’s happened to plenty of heroes, hasn’t it _Eraserhead_?”

“Yes. True enough,” he agreed easily as he pulled out his yellow cocoon-like sleeping bag and stepped in. “Midnight here will be assessing the sensibility of your names, since I’m no good at that. What type of hero do you want to be? Where do you see yourself in the future? Your name should be chosen keeping in mind the type of image you want to project, like a reflection of your character. Think of All Might. His name gave people hope and courage that he could handle anything.”

Izuku had, of course, dreamed of being a hero as a small child. He’d thought of tons of names that were an homage to All Might, but they didn’t seem very appropriate now. Aizawa didn’t appear to have anything more to say as he zipped himself in and settled on the floor for a nap. Izuku imagined that being an underground hero kept him up very late most nights, and he probably never got enough sleep.

Midnight asked Izuku and Iida to pass out dry-erase boards and markers to each student, then gave them fifteen minutes to brainstorm before asking if anyone was ready to share.

Aoyama was the first to stand, taking his board and standing behind the lectern before taking a deep breath. “Here I go!” He flipped the board over to reveal:

Shining Hero:

I cannot stop twinkling.

Many people snorted or giggled, and Kirishima said, “That’s a whole sentence!”

Midnight did not seem daunted, however, and stepped forward to help. “It’ll be easier to take out the ‘I’ and change ‘cannot’ to a contraction.”

“I see, mademoiselle!” Aoyama said happily.

The class stared in disbelief, but Ashido didn’t give them time to dwell on that very long, because she had her _own_ brand of weirdness to bring to the table. She held up her board to show the class:

Ridley Hero:

ALIEN QUEEN

“From the sequel?” one of the boys called out, “because her blood was super acidic? That’s horrible!”

Even Midnight made a disparaging _tsk!_ and sent her back to her seat to think about it some more.

Izuku was thinking that because the weird ones had gone first, the pressure was on the rest of them to salvage this situation and come up with something good. Finally, Asui raised her hand and asked to go next. She seemed pretty confident as she took her place in front of them and said, “I’ve had this thought out since elementary school. You can call me _Froppy_.”  
She held up her sign:

Rainy Season Hero:

FROPPY

“So cute!” Midnight enthused. “It sounds very approachable and friendly! Take note everyone! She chose a perfectly lovable name!”

The mood in the room lightened after that. Kirishima when next, and others followed with well thought out monikers that fit their personality and images. Until…

Shouto

_’Seriously?’_ Izuku thought when Midnight allowed it, despite not being pleased. A couple of other went after him, and Izuku was still having trouble.

Hitoshi leaned over and saw his blank board and said in a whisper-yell, “How about Small Might?”

A few kids laughed as Izuku glared at him. “I _will_ murder you some day.”

Then Bakugou got to his feet, and Izuku couldn’t help but be interested in what he’d pick. He must have been thinking of his hero name since preschool, after all.

**KING EXPLOSION MURDER**

Izuku facepalmed, and Hitoshi? There was no other word for it: he _sporfled_, laughing so hard he was pounding the top on his desk and had tears streaming. His laughter was so funny, that others were laughing at his extreme reaction. This only made Bakugou angrier than he normally was, and growled, “Let’s see you do better, asshole.”

Hitoshi wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes and he slid out of his seat and sauntered to the front of the room to show his board:

Brainwashing hero:

Mind Bender

“Not bad!” Midnight approved with an impressed-looking expression. “Not bad at all!”

Hitoshi raised his eyebrow in a ‘_so there_’ expression as he passed Bakugou, who flipped him off in response. Hitoshi and Izuku fist bumped as he sat down.

Uraraka got nervously to her feet and headed to the front of the room before giving a sweet smile and shyly turning her board to face the class. “This is what I thought of:”

Gravity Defying Hero:

URAVITY

“Good one!” Midnight gushed, “Very Punny! This is going much smoother than I expected! Now we just have Bakugou’s re-write, Iida-kun and Midoriya left. Are any of you ready?”

Iida looked pained as he stepped forward and simply set his board up:

TENYA

“You, too, huh?” Midnight said with disappointment clear in her voice. “Just your name? Well, hopefully you find another name along the way.”

That was extremely worrying. There was no way that Iida, who came from a long line of heroes, hadn’t had a name picked out for himself long ago. Why not use it?

Izuku took a deep breath and stood, writing on his board as he walked to the front.

The I-Can-Do-It hero:

DEKU

“Wasn’t that an insult?” Iida asked with a furrowed brow. “Are you really okay with that?”

“I used to hate it,” he admitted. It was a name that was used to make me feel small and worthless, until someone gave it a new meaning.” He smiled at Uraraka who smiled back in delighted surprise. “I’m never going to be a _useless deku_ again. From now on, I’m going to be the _Deku who gives his all._

Hitoshi was shaking his head with an amused smile, and Bakugou was looking at him with incredulous disgust written in every line of his face. Still, it felt _right_ and could always be changed later if it turned out to be a bad choice.

Bakugou tried again a moment later with, “LORD Explosion Murder, then EMPORER Explosion Murder...Even MISTER Explosion Murder, but they were all rejected.”

“Take the ‘murder’ part out, dude!” Kirishima told him in a tone that said it should be obvious.

“Shut up, shitty hair!” Bakugou pouted. He was told to think about it and get back to Midnight with an appropriate name. 

A few students already knew where they wanted to go for their internships and were discussing it after Midnight left. Uraraka asked, “Do you know where you want to go, Deku?”

He hardly heard her. He was busy staring at his list of possible candidates and making notes in the margins of the paper about his first thoughts on many of them and the advantages of training under them. He didn’t even realize he’d been mumbling nonstop until Hitoshi tossed an eraser at him and hit him in the shoulder. Izuku looked up to see his classmates smiling at him indulgently.

“Oh! Uh...sorry about that. It’s a big decision,” He said sheepishly. “Where did you guys say you were thinking about?”

“I’m going to go with the Battle Hero Gunhead’s Agency!” Uraraka said, adopting a fighting pose. 

“Whoa! He’s a rough-and-tumble, scrappy type of fighter, isn’t he?” Izuku asked in amazement. “I thought for sure someone like Thirteen…”

“I thought so too, at first, but my fight with Bakugou got me thinking. Getting stronger and learning new fighting techniques opens up all sorts of new possibilities! I can’t improve much if I keep doing things the same way all the time!” Uraraka seemed all fired up about it, and Izuku couldn’t argue with her logic.

“That’s a fantastic idea, Uraraka,” Hitoshi assured her. “You’ll do great!”

“What about you, Hitoshi? Do you have a place in mind you want to go?” she asked eagerly.

“I already know where I’m going,” he said firmly. “But...I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone. I’m the one who approached them and asked them to take me on, and that was one of the conditions of them agreeing.”

“You’re aiming to be an underground hero,” Izuku said. “So it makes sense that if you want to intern with one, they’d want to be secretive about it.”

“Ooooh!” Uraraka nodded in agreement. “If that’s what you’re going for, underground heroes have to keep things on the downlow, so they aren’t easily recognizable on the street, huh?”

“Something like that,” Hitoshi agreed. “But I’ll be working hard, for sure.”

“Let’s all do our very best!” Uraraka said enthusiastically.

Izuku had two days to decide where he wanted to intern, and that wasn’t a lot of time, when he had only narrowed his choices down to a dozen so far. After school, he caught Todoroki and asked him if he knew where he’d be going.

“Oh. I’m going to Endeavor’s Agency.” Todoroki said calmly. 

“Seriously? But I thought…” Izuku wasn’t sure how polite it would be to point out that he hated his father.

Seeming to understand, Todoroki said, “He might be a horrible father and a terrible person, but he’s still the number one hero with years of experience. If I want to learn how to use my fire safely and effectively, who better to teach me?”

“I guess that makes sense,” Izuku admitted, still concerned. “How would you describe him as a teacher?”

“Brutal. Why?”

“I got drafted by his agency for an internship, and I want to make an informed choice about it,” Izuku said, watching him closely for any reaction that might give away clues about how he felt hearing it.

“Interesting. He’ll definitely work you hard, but it seems like that’s not something you’d be scared of. To be honest, he’s probably interested in you because you are the only one I’ve used my fire against in years.” Todoroki’s expression didn’t really change, so it was hard to tell if he was upset about that or not. “But it would look good on your transcripts, once you leave Yuuei.”

“You wouldn’t mind having someone from your class interning with you?” Izuku asked, feeling suddenly insecure.

“Not if it’s you,” Todoroki answered frankly. “You’re a good fighter and have a strong quirk.”

For some reason, Izuku’s face flushed when he heard that, and his heart picked up speed. _’What the heck?’_

“I’ll uh… I’ll talk it over with Gran and see what he thinks.”

Todoroki was about to turn to leave when Izuku remembered something.

“Oh! Todoroki-kun! In all of the chaos that happened, I didn’t get a chance to say thank you. For helping me before our match, with my uh...my panic attack.” Izuku said awkwardly. “I meant to say something before, but it really helped.”

“I’m glad,” Todoroki said with a small smile. “It’s how my sister used to help me, after they put my mother in the hospital after...everything.”

Knowing he must be referring to the time she’d poured boiling water on his face, Izuku nodded. “I’m glad you had someone to help you, then. It taught you how to help me.”

Todoroki looked thoughtful at that, then nodded. “I’ll look forward to working with you, if you decide to intern with Endeavor.” He walked away, leaving Izuku to rush to catch up to Hitoshi and the others. 

Gran helped him sort through his offers that evening, and offered advice on a few. In the end, they made a list of pros and cons for each of the top five, until they had a clear winner.

“If Toshinori was still alive and had chosen you as his successor, he probably would have dumped you on _me_, since I’m the one that beat him into shape.”

“You said that before,” Izuku said curiously. It wasn’t often that Gran was willing to talk much about All Might; Izuku figured it was too painful, like losing a child. “His predecessor died while he was still in high school?”

“She did,” Gran agreed, sipping a cup of tea. “Shimura Nana was as tough as they come, but… not tough enough to beat All For One. She was my best friend at the time, though she was a bit younger than me. She had a family of her own, but her husband was killed by villains as a way to get to her.”

Izuku gasped, and sympathetic tears welled in his eyes. 

“After that, something in her just wasn’t the same anymore. She put her only child into foster care, and told them to never tell her where. She wanted to keep him safe, and knew if they told her, she’d break and take him back. She made me and Toshinori swear to never go looking for him, either, even if something happened to her. She never wanted him to be a target.”

“So...he doesn’t even know she died?” Izuku asked, sniffling. 

“Who knows? It was on the news, but back then heroes weren’t the super stars they are today. If he wasn’t local, it might never have reached where he lived.”

“That’s so sad.” Izuku tried to imagine it, and his heart ached for both the child and the mother.

“It is. Now you can see why I never married or had kids of my own.” Gran said gruffly. “Toshinori was already practically a man when I took charge of him. You and your mom kinda snuck up on me, and I never saw you comin’.” 

Izuku huffed out a watery laugh at that. “Mom had a way of getting into people’s hearts.”

“That she did, and you take after her. Now that you’ve made your choice, make sure you do your homework and find out anything you can about others who have worked for him. The more you know about what he expects, the faster you can fit in and get to work. A week ain’t a lot of time to learn something new.” That was Gran’s kind way of getting out of a conversation that was getting far to sentimental for him.

“Yes sir!” Izuku hopped up and headed to his room to call Hitoshi.

The next morning, Izuku handed Aizawa his draft choice paperwork with a determined look. “I’ve chosen to go to the Endeavor Agency.”

Even if Aizawa had wanted to reply, his voice would have been drowned out by several voices at once shouting, **_“WHAT?”_**

“You got drafted by the number one?” Kirishima asked excitedly. “That amazing!”

“You’ll learn so much, Deku!” Hagakure squealed, jumping up and down.

“How’d you rate an offer from the number one?” groused Bakugou, who was going to be interning with the number three, Best Jeanist.

“I’ll look forward to working with you,” Todoroki said quietly as Izuku walked past him to take his seat.

“You, too! Please take care of me!” Izuku said, feeling excited now that the decision was officially made.

Within a week, Izuku had his hero costume and a duffel bag ready to go. He would have been staying in a small dormitory-like space at the agency under normal circumstances, but Todoroki had informed him that his father had suggested he stay in their home as a guest. Izuku had been shocked at first, but had gratefully accepted when he was told it was so they could begin training as early in the morning as possible. Izuku was an early riser most days, anyway, so this was no hardship. He was at the train station with the rest of the class, saying goodbye and wishing everyone good luck. 

Hitoshi, Uraraka and even Todoroki (who seemed to just be sticking with Midoriya) followed Izuku to catch up with Iida before he left.

“Iida!” Izuku called out. In the past couple of days, the news had revealed that Ingenium’s attacker had been none other than the hero killer, _Stain_, who had already murdered seventeen heroes, and put 23 more permanently out of commission. He was like a ghost that seemed to vanish almost as quickly as he appeared, leaving misery and chaos in his wake. Iida hadn’t wanted to talk about it, saying he wanted to focus on his brother getting better, so they hadn’t pushed it.

Iida stopped, but did not immediately turn to face them. “I have a train to catch.”

“We know that, but we just wanted you to know that we’re here for you. If it ever gets too much, or you just need to talk, you can call any of us. We’re your friends.” Izuku told him while the others nodded. 

Iida did turn, then, with a fond smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Thank you all. I’ll remember that.”

They watched him go. Izuku felt like he should have said more, but he knew from experience that you can’t hear things until you’re ready to listen. 

Shouto looked slightly puzzled by what was happening but didn’t ask. Instead, he pointed at an incoming train and said, “That’s our train, Midoriya.”

They all said one more hasty goodbye to each other, then Izuku found himself sitting beside Todoroki, riding into the city to Edeavor’s agency.

“Did something happen to Iida?” Todoroki suddenly asked.

Did he really not know? It had been on the news, and their classmates had talked about it, but maybe Todoroki’s habit of standing or sitting on the sidelines a lot of the time kept him from really connecting with others.

“His brother is the Turbo Hero: Ingenium,” Izuku explained patiently, trying to keep the sadness out of his voice.. “He was wounded by the Hero Killer while we were at the Sports Festival. That’s why Iida wasn’t there at the end. They’re saying that Ingenium may never walk again.”

“I see. That explains it,” Todoroki said thoughtfully. To anyone who hadn’t spent time with him before might think he was unfeeling, since his expression didn’t change, and his voice remained level. Izuku could tell that he was merely absorbing what he’d just learned, and not really being cold about it at all. He wondered if his upbringing had made Todoroki wary of showing emotion or expression.

“Todoroki,” Izuku began, intending to ask him about where he lived.

“You should probably call me Shouto,” he said with a small head tilt when Izuku blushed deeply about being told to address him so informally. “It will be easier for you, since it’s my hero name, and there are other Todoroki family member’s you’ll meet. It might get confusing.”

“Oh! Right!” Izuku laughed nervously, embarrassed by being embarrassed by something that should have been fairly obvious. “I forgot you didn’t really choose a hero name. Do you not want one, or do you really just like your own name?”

“I haven’t thought of anything that really feels right,” he admitted. “Shouto is fine for now.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, Izuku having forgotten his original question in his chagrin over names. Then, out of the blue, Shouto stated, “I went to see my mother.”

Izuku looked at him questioningly, unsure of what to say.

“I hadn’t seen her since that night,” he said in a low voice. “My father had her put in a hospital, and now she lives in a residential mental hospital facility.”

Izuku was sure this was the most he’d ever heard Todoroki say at one time, other that at the Sports Festival. “That must have been hard,” he said carefully. He wasn’t sure if what he was hearing was meant to be good news or bad.

“I was...scared. What if she blamed me, you know?” Shouto confided. “Then I thought that she probably thought the same thing about me. Maybe she thought I blamed her; but I never did. I always understood that my father had driven her over the edge, but I was too young to know how to tell her that. I wasn’t allowed to see her after that.”

“How did it go? The visit, I mean,” Izuku asked.

“It went...well,” Todoroki said with a soft, barely-there smile. “There were things about her I had forgotten. I remembered them during my fight with you at the Sports Festival. I remembered her telling me that I could be any type of hero I wanted, and that it was _my_ power and I didn’t have to be the way my father trying to force me to be. I secretly really liked All Might, and wanted to be like him, and my mother...she told me I could.”

“I always wanted to be like him, too,” Izuku said. “I still do.”

That brought a slightly bigger smile to Shouto’s face. “Me, too,” he admitted. “My mother was so happy to see me, it made me wish I’d gone sooner. She asked me to forgive her; I told her I’d never blamed her to begin with, and she cried. I...I won’t let my fear keep me from visiting her from now on.”

“I’m glad,” Izuku told him sincerely. “I didn’t realize how much people _need_ forgiveness until recently. Sometimes getting it, sometimes giving it.”

Todoroki nodded solemnly, even though he had no idea that Izuku had spoken with Mr. Lady about it just last week.

“I’m more determined than ever to be a great hero,” Shouto said as the train arrived at their station. “Let’s work hard, Midoriya.”

“Yeah!” Midoriya agreed with a smile, feeling lighter in spirit as they walked to Endeavor’s agency just a block away.

They were directed to suit up immediately by one of the sidekicks, who had been sent to meet them when they arrived. 

“Your costume looks a bit different,” Shouto said when Izuku zipped it up.

“I had some modifications made,” Izuku said proudly. After the USJ training, I had the support students add an air filter to my mask. One of the pockets in my belt has a tiny air tank that should give me a minute or so of breathable air for emergencies. The company that designed our suits also made this modification:” Izuku pressed a button hidden in his collar, just to the left of the zipper, and the black decorative lines on his suit became lined with bright ropes of LED light that glowed brightly enough to light up a sizable area around him.

“Impressive,” Todoroki said, when he was forced to squint slightly, even in such a well lit room. “That could really be useful in the future.”

“Thanks! Your suit has changed, too! I like this one better. You aren’t all coated in ice, now.” Izuku complimented the blue jumpsuit the same white boots. There were white accessories and a belt, as well.

“Well, if I’m going to be training my fire, it’ll be easier this way,” Shouto explained simply. “Let’s go. Endeavor doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” 

Shouto wasn’t understating the matter. As soon as they stepped off the elevator, Endeavor practically pushed them out the front door. “We’re going on patrol. Walk with me, keep up and don’t ask too many questions.”

“Yes sir,” both boys said in unison.

Izuku wasn’t sure what he expected from his first patrol, but found it very...educational in an interesting way. Whereas Izuku had seen other pro heroes approached by fans and admired openly everywhere they went, the same didn’t hold true for Endeavor. He had a forbidding air around him that kept everyone at bay. Even when he was noticed and people commented or pointed, no one seemed inclined to ask for autographs or even offer him a greeting. He hardly spared a word or glance at his interns as they followed silently behind him. Izuku glanced at Shouto occasionally, but the boy seemed to be comfortably scanning the area with calm eyes. Izuku took his cue from them, and watched people involved in their everyday routines, occasionally smiling and nodding to people who seemed curious about the costumed young men trailing behind the number one.

As they made their way along a shopping district street, Izuku noticed a man slipping merchandise into his pockets from a street vendor without paying. 

“Sir?” he finally said to gain Endeavor’s attention. “That man just shoplifted from that vendor. The one in the gray hoodie and blue baseball cap.”

Endeavor’s eyes travelled to the man in question. He didn’t say anything in return, but strode over to the man and glared at him. Shouto and Izuku stood a little farther back, in case the man did something foolish.

“Mr. Endeavor, s-s-sir!” the man said nervously when he spotted the hero. 

Endeavor didn’t say a word, just fixed his intimidating stare on the man, who had started to stammer and sweat. The flames that wreathed Endeavor’s chest and face flared brighter, and his glare intensified. The man’s shoulders seemed to sag just a bit, and he pulled the stolen items out of his pockets.

“It was just a couple of trinkets for my daughter…” he tried to say.

Endeavor didn’t relent with his flames or his glare until the man backtracked and returned the items to the vendor with an apology. A policemen on a bicycle soon materialized and took the man into custody, thanking Endeavor for his assistance.

Not a word had been spoken by the hero during the entire exchange, and he walked away, his flames back to their normal intensity. Izuku just observed, wondering at how odd the whole event had been.

“Shouto. Tell him,” Endeavor ordered without looking back at either of them.

“We don’t get involved in petty cases where no one is in danger,” Shouto told Deku, as if reading from a script. “Leave the small fry to the police and focus on important matters.”

“I see,” Izuku said, pinching his lower lip as he considered this. He _did_ see; Endeavor seemed to be the type of hero who didn’t serve the community in small ways, the way some others did. Hawks, in particular, who was another top hero, was known for his easy going and friendly nature with fans, community members, and even wrong-doers. Endeavor seemed to make everyone equally nervous and uneasy with his unapproachability; it was quite an interesting difference. Izuku wished he could stop and make some notes about it while the thoughts and ideas were fresh in his head. 

The patrol only lasted about two hours, and nothing of note happened in that time. Izuku continued to take mental notes about the community in general, such as landmarks, high traffic areas, and where kobans and other hero agencies were located.

Returning to the Agency, Endeavor simply held out a hand toward one of the receptionists at the front desk, and she silently handed him a stack of mail with a slight bow. He turned to the interns, then and said, “Training with Termite on the fourth floor until lunch.” Shouto nodded, and Izuku quickly did the same, figuring that his friend knew what he was talking about.

Endeavor disappeared down a hallway, and Shouto visibly relaxed, though it hadn’t been very obvious he’d been tense until Izuku saw his shoulders drop and his jaw unclench. 

“We take the stairs to the training dojo,” Shouto said. “You can’t reach it by elevator.”

“Endeavor doesn’t speak much, does he?” Izuku asked as they climbed.

“Not usually,” Shouto answered, making it obvious that it was a learned behavior.

The rest of the day was like that, flowing from patrol to training (that left them sweaty and breathless) to lunch in the small cafeteria. After lunch it was learning to fill out paperwork pertaining to patrols, any incidents or official statements made to law enforcement. Then, there was another uneventful two hour patrol, this time with a side-kick named Backlash. He was slightly more talkative than Endeavor, but not by much. When they returned to the agency as the sun was beginning to set, they were told they could change and go ‘home’ for the night.

The Todoroki home turned out to be a huge traditional style home with modern conveniences. It was rather minimalist in its design, and seemed a little more like a model for an architecture magazine than a living space.

“Welcome back,” a female voice called from inside.

“I’m home,” Shouto intoned.

“Please excuse the intrusion,” Izuku said as they removed their shoes and donned slippers.

A young woman came through a doorway to greet them, and Iuku knew immediately that his had to be Shouto’s older sister. She was slim and pretty, with snow-whitle hair tipped with red at the ends sporadically around her head. She seemed to be everything that Endeavor was not: warm and friendly with a pleasant smile that put one at ease. “You must be Midoriya-kun,” she greeted. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m Fuyumi. Shouto has talked about you before. Please come in!”

“He has?” Izuku asked with surprise. 

Was that a faint blush on Shouto’s cheeks? Why was that so...so...cute? 

“Well, we were partners for battle training, then we faced off at the Sports Festival,” Shouto said in his defense, as if being accused of something. 

“You made quite an impression on him, I think.” Fuyumi said. “Yuuei has been good for him; he was home schooled, so he’s never had a lot of people his own age to talk to.”

They followed her to the kitchen, were glorious smells were wafting from the stove and oven. Izuku was the one to blush when his stomach growled as he entered.

Fuyumi laughed quietly and turned to Shouto. “Show him up to the guest room, then you can both wash your hands. Dinner is ready, and we can eat as soon as Natsuo gets home.”

“We won’t wait for your father?” Izuku asked in surprise.

“He doesn’t often get home before nine,” Fuyumi assured him. “He’ll eat at work.”

Izuku nodded and followed Shouto up the stairs to a traditional style room with a futon folded and waiting on the floor. There was a small dresser for his things and a small closet with extra towels and blankets. “Thank you, it’s very nice.” he said politely as Shouto showed him everything, including where the bathroom down the hall was. “I’ve never really slept on a futon before.”

Shouto stared at him blankly for a moment, as if he couldn’t comprehend what he’d just heard, then blinked. “I hope you’ll find it comfortable.”

Before Izuku could reply, Fuyumi appeared, startling him. With how quiet her steps were, he hadn’t heard or sensed her approaching. “Natsuo is home, so we can have dinner,” she said with a soft voice.

Izuku noticed that there really wasn’t any ambient noise in the house. The fact that no television in the background or a radio playing to break the silence might have been peaceful, if not for the subtle atmosphere of unease that seemed ingrained. It was almost like a library, where some strict old lady might pop out and scold you for being too loud at any moment.That atmosphere changed a little when Natsuo made an appearance. He was a bit louder than the others, with a jovial attitude and an open contempt for their father that made Izuku stare and Fuyumi scold.

“The old bastard didn’t traumatize you on your first day, did he?” Natsuo asked Izuku as he accepted a large bowl of rice from his sister.

“No, it was fine,” Izuku said at the same time that Fuyumi gasped.

“Natsuo!” she scolded him, “Don’t try to influence his opinion of father. He’s a guest!”

“It’s not really a secret that he’s a huge jerk,” Natsuo said stubbornly.

Izuku, not sure how to respond, looked to see Shouto eating calmly, as if this was completely normal for them. “He has a very interesting way of doing things,” Izuku finally said diplomatically. “I’m sure I’m going to learn a lot from him.”

Fuyumi seemed appeased at that, and asked about everyone’s day, keeping a polite conversation going for the rest of the meal. She seemed very surprised when Izuku offered to wash the dishes, and it seemed that Endeavor expected his daughter to do most of the day to day housework for all of them. Shouto explained that a housekeeper came in bi-weekly to do a lot of ‘stuff’, but Fuyumi did the rest. More things were adding up in Izuku’s observations.

By the time he went to sleep that night, Izuku had filled several pages in the notebook he had bought to document his internship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Izuku’s LED lights were inspired by the light suits from the movie TRON (you can google it, I haven’t learned how to post links, yet).


	14. A Friend in Need

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Internships are heating up no matter how you slice it!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did use some direct lines and quotes from the manga for parts of this, so this is the standard disclaimer that I don’t own any of these characters or settings. Also, this chapter is a little longer than normal, because I did borrow heavily from canon. I had the last six pages at the beginning of the next chapter, but decided it fit better on this one. Thanks for reading!

The next morning, the guest room door slid open from the outside, while Endeavor’s voice rumbled, “There’s no sleeping late, here…”

He stopped mid-sentence when he found Midoriya on the floor, completing a set of pushups, covered in a sheen of sweat. Izuku hopped to his feet and hastily grabbed a towel to dry off with. “I’m sorry sir. No one told me what time to be ready this morning. I didn’t hear anyone moving around, and didn’t want to disturb anyone.”

Endeavor grunted at that, seeming almost disappointed that he didn’t have a reason to scold his new intern. “You can accompany Shouto on his morning run before breakfast. He’s finishing his warm ups in the dojo. Meet him by the front door in five minutes.”

“Yes sir,” Izuku said, glancing at his phone to see that it was nearly six in the morning. He took his running shoes from his bag and slipped on a shirt before heading down the stairs. Shouto joined him as he was sitting on the ledge of the genkan, tying his shoes. 

“How far do you usually run, Todo--Shouto?” Izuku asked as he straightened.

Shouto’s hair was damp around his face from whatever exercise he had been doing before. The red and white were tousled together, and sticking up slightly in the back. Izuku thought it was very endearing. 

“About ten kilometers,” he answered, quickly tying his own laces. “There’s a good path nearby that not many people use this early.”

“Lead the way,” Izuku said cheerfully.

Shouto gave him what could only be described as _a look_ before saying, “You’re a morning person.”

Izuku gave him a sunny smile. “Guilty. I got into the habit once my quirk made an appearance and I had to train so much. Gran had me up with the sun most mornings.”

“I’ve been waking up at dawn for as long as I can remember, but it hasn’t made me a morning person, yet.” Shouto said, closing the door softly behind them.

Izuku wondered what type of person Shouto _was_, as they started jogging at an easy pace to start. “Shouto-kun, when was the last time you laughed?”

Shouto shot a look over at him that looked confused. “Why would I laugh?”

Izuku felt like facepalming. “I don’t know, when something is funny? A joke you heard, something ridiculous you saw? A meme? A television show? Just feeling really happy?” 

“I can’t remember,” Shouto said seriously, picking up the pace as they reached a wooded trail that ran parallel to a stream. “I smile sometimes, but…”

“I guess maybe it’s because you were brought up in a strict household,” Izuku murmured. He silently made a vow to make Shouto laugh at some point in the school year, if it killed him. He would enlist the others, too, if he had to.

“...maybe.” Shouto didn’t seem to have anything more to say on the subject, so they ran in companionable silence.

It was different from Izuku’s usual runs with Hitoshi, where they would joke, or turn it into a competition that included some parkour or other silliness through the neighborhoods. This was more tranquil, with very few buildings or homes visible through the trees. The air was cool and the birds were making a fuss in the branches overhead. Maybe it was why Shoto liked this path; it was quiet and uncomplicated. They turned around to head back at a water fountain after getting a quick drink, and arrived back at the house a little before seven. 

They quickly washed up and sat at a silent breakfast table, now that Endeavor was present. The only sounds were the quiet clink of dishes and chopsticks, and even though the rest of them had finished eating, everyone sat in silence waiting for Endeavor to finish the last few bites of his meal. He stood first, and the others seemed to relax a bit. Izuku followed Shouto’s lead and stayed seated. 

“I’ll be leaving first. I’ll expect to see the two of you thirty minutes.” Endeavor turned to head for the front door. “I’ll be home early this evening, make appropriate preparations.”

Izuku was confused as to what that meant, but Fuyumi simply said, “Yes, father.”

Endeavor left and the others all stood, Fuyumi collecting dishes and Natsuo disappearing down the hall. Izuku took his dishes to the kitchen to help Fuyumi, and Shouto looked at him strangely but did the same. Fuyumi seemed surprised but happy to see them both helping, but shooed them away once their dishes were in the sink. “You’ll want to hurry, so you don’t miss your train. There are bentos for you in the fridge, so don’t forget to take them.”

Izuku thanked her for the meal and retrieved his bag. “Is there a reason we didn’t leave with your father?”

They walked down the long driveway that gave the Todoroki home its privacy and toward the train station a few minutes walk away. “He takes his car,” Shouto said simply.

Izuku wasn’t sure that was much of an answer, but didn’t question it. They rode the train and arrived at the agency with about five minutes to spare. They hurried to change into the hero costumes, and their day began much the same as the day before. Their patrols were somewhat tedious, since there didn’t seem to be much crime in the areas that Endeavor patrolled regularly. They trained with Termite again, then went through a session of sparring with a side-kick named _Blitz_ that left Izuku feeling sore, but exhilarated. Then it was lunch with the bentos that Fuyumi had made, that were much better than the food the cafeteria had offered the previous day. 

Another afternoon patrol with sidekick named _Blackout_ gave them a distraction in the form of a purse snatcher that seemed to have wheels for feet. Blackout had caused the man to go temporarily blind, and Shouto and Deku had apprehended him rather easily after he crashed into a parked car. There was a report and some paperwork to fill out after that, and then it was time for them to return home.

Fuyumi was rushing around a bit in the kitchen when they arrived, looking stressed. When Shouto asked what was wrong, she said, “Father is going to be home in less than thirty minutes and I just barely got home myself. I had a conference with a parent after school that ran long.”

Izuku remembered being told the night before that Fuyumi was a school teacher. “I can help,” he said readily. “What can I do?”

“Oh, no, you don’t have to…” Fuyumi protested.

“It’s no trouble. I cook at home all the time.” Izuku assured her, finding an apron folded in a drawer and putting it over his head. 

“If father finds out…” she dithered. 

“Then we won’t tell him,” Izuku said briskly. “It looks like you’ve got the fish covered, and the rice is cooking. “I’ll do the soup, Shouto, you can do the pickles.”

“I can?” Shouto looked a little lost, but Fuyumi showed him what to do, and it was a very simple chore. 

Izuku soon had a simple dashi-based soup simmering with shrimp and vegetables in it. Shouto had managed to get pickled vegetables plated, and Fuyumi prepared the salad while the fish finished cooking. In less than twenty minutes, the meal was nearly complete and Izuku and Shouto left the kitchen so that Endeavor wouldnt’ find evidence of them doing ‘Fuyumi’s job’.

“I didn’t know you could cook,” Shouto told him as he gave Izuku a tour of the house that he hadn’t gotten to see the previous day. “My father would say it was women’s work.”

“To be honest, my mother did almost everything for me while I was growing up, though I did learn a little bit. When she died, and it was just me and Gran, we were pretty lost. We had to learn to take care of ourselves, you know?”

“I guess that makes sense,” Todoroki said consideringly.

“It doesn’t really seem fair that your sister gets stuck with all of the work, even while she has a full time job, does it?” Izuku pointed out. “Just because she’s a girl, doesn’t mean she has to be the only one taking care of the chores.”

“My father doesn’t see it that way. He thinks she should concentrate on getting a husband, and getting used to taking care of a household. This is supposed to help with that, I guess.” Todoroki seemed like he’d never really given it much thought before.

“I hope she finds one that doesn’t expect to be waited on,” Izuku said without really thinking.

“You...have different ideas than I’m used to,” Shouto told him, not unkindly.

Izuku merely shrugged. He didn’t think his ideas were all that revolutionary; he just wanted people to be treated fairly and do their fair share. The more he was exposed to life at the Todoroki household, the more into focus Shouto’s attitudes and behaviors came. Shouto was a product of being raised by a father that instilled fear in his family, and a family that was constantly on edge from being afraid. No wonder he always seemed to lack expression on his face or inflection in his voice. How often was he shown affection or appreciation by the adults in his day to day life?

“Dad’s home. Come eat dinner,” Natsuo said, poking his head into the study where Shouto had undergone most of his schooling before Yuuei. Izuku and Shouto followed him to the dining room, where Fuyumi was putting dishes on the table in front of each place setting. 

Everyone took their places at the table and waited for Endeavor to take his place and begin before any of them picked up their chopsticks. It was another silent meal until Endeavor tasted the soup and said quietly. “The soup is different than usual.”

Shouto, Izuku and Fuyumi all paused in eating to look at him.

“I decided to try something new,” Fuyumi said quietly.

Endeavor said nothing more, nor did he give any indication as to whether he liked it or not. He finished his meal before the others this time, and stood.

“Shouto. Come to the dojo in fifteen minutes. We have training.”

“Yes, sir.” Shouto answered quietly.

Once Endeavor had left the room, Fuyumi stood and started clearing empty plates. When Izuku started to help she shook her head at him silently and he relented, not wanting to cause her trouble. “He doesn’t seem to be in a bad mood,” Fuyumi told Shouto. 

“No, I think it will be just a regular training,” Shouto agreed.

“What other kind do you do?” Izuku asked curiously. He was wondering if he would be allowed to join.

“The kind where he beats the crap out of Shouto and calls it sparring,” Natsuo said bitterly.

“Natsuo!” Fuyumi gasped, coming close to raising her voice.

Natsuo _tsk_ed and left the table with a hastily murmured, “Thanks for the meal.” He didn’t _quite_ storm out of the house, but his body language said he wanted to as he crammed his feet into his shoes and went outside.

Fuyumi sighed and looked at Izuku sadly. “I’m sorry for that, Midoriya-kun. Natsuo and my father don’t get along very well sometimes.”

“Or ever,” Shouto said blandly. “I’m going to go change for training.”

“Should I come along?” Izuku asked, not sure if he’d be welcome, or if he should insist to make sure Shouto would be alright.

“No. We’ll be practicing with fire,” was all he said before giving thanks for the meal and leaving the table as well. 

“Would it be alright if I went outside for a bit?” Izuku asked Fuyumi, unsure if such an innocent action would cause a disturbance. 

“Of course!” Fuyumi said. Just be back before lights out at ten,” she said with a sweet smile. “That's when the alarm automatically activates.”

Since it was only about seven, that would be no problem. Izuku went outside to see if he could find Natsuo. 

He wasn’t hard to find. He was just standing by a small koi pond in a large courtyard, watching the fish glide around in the dim light cast by lights near the house. Izuku went and stood a couple of meters away at the edge of the pond, trying to think about how to broach the subject that Natsuo had been trying to bring up at the table. He didn’t want to pry, exactly, but he felt like it was something he should know, if his friend was being beaten by his father just for the sake of punishment or Endeavor’s bad moods. In the end, he didn’t have to ask at all; Natsuo was a fountain of information.

“I’ll bet you think we’re all nuts, huh?” the white haired man asked with a smirk. “You can tell this isn’t a normal household, right?”

Izuku couldn’t think of anything to say other than, “It’s very...quiet.”

Natsuo laughed at that. “That’s one way of putting it. Dear old dad has a short fuse, and after keeping it under wraps all day at work, it’s hard to say what will make it ignite when he gets home.”

“He doesn’t seem to talk very much,” Izuku ventured, not wanting to be too critical, but still being curious.

“That’s a good thing, believe me. That tongue of his is sharp, and he’ll use it to cut deep. I used to think that the way we live was normal, until I went to school and saw that other kids had warm, loud, happy families.”

“You weren’t homeschooled?” Izuku asked, intrigued.

“Nah. Me and Fuyumi are the throw-away kids, ‘cause we don’t have strong quirks. Shouto got homeschooled by a strict tutor so my father could focus on sculpting his _masterpiece_. Things were easier on us when Mom was still around, but after…”

He paused, seeming to remember who he was talking to. Izuku nodded in understanding, “After she was hospitalized?” he prompted.

“Did Shouto tell you?” Natsuo asked, conveying surprise. “He must really trust you! He _never_ talks about it.”

“He told me about it during the Sports Festival, when I was asking him why he wouldn’t use his fire,” Izuku confirmed. “I’m glad that he trusted me enough to talk to me about it.”

“Dude...you have no idea how _huge_ that is,” Natsuo told him. “Shouto hardly ever says anything at all, so if he told you about Mom, you must have really made an impression on him.”

“He told me that he went to visit her after the festival, and that it went okay. Maybe he’s starting to heal,” Izuku speculated. “Maybe he’s just _ready._”

“He…” Natsuo swallowed hard, as if he had a sudden lump in his throat. “He went to _see_ her? _In person?_”

“That’s what he said,” Izuku nodded with a small smile. “He also said he wanted to keep visiting her.”

“Wow.” Natsuo seemed suddenly at a loss for words, eyes tracking the shapes of the fish beneath the surface.

A flicker of orange light caught Izuku’s eye, and he looked over toward the house. There were more flickers, then sustained brightness that was obviously flames.

“That’s the dojo,” Natsuo told him, following his gaze. “Everything in there is treated with fire retardant, so there’s no danger. Not to the room, anyway.”

“You said that your father takes his bad moods out on Shouto during training?” Izuku asked, biting the bullet and risking crossing the line into plain interrogation. “Does that happen a lot?”

“Not as much in the past couple of years,” Natsuo said, not seeming to mind the question at all. In fact, he seemed eager to tell someone about it. “He’s always been very hard on Shouto, and anyone who tried to get in the way or questioned his methods. My mom tried to get him to ease up, but she was never a match for him, in any way.”

Izuku wondered if Endeavor had ever raised a hand to her, when she tried to intervene, and felt anger beginning to simmer at the back of his mind.

“OnceShouto’s quirk manifested, he was almost never allowed to play with us, or any other kids. He would force his so-called _training_ on him until he threw up or passed out, then yell at him for being weak. He was always covered in bruises and burns… It got to the point that Fuyumi and I practically didn’t exist to our father, and we made sure to keep quiet and stay out of his way, so he wouldn’t notice us.”

“No one ever... investigated?” Izuku asked, feeling pity and anger boiling inside of him with no outlet.

“Nope. Like I said, we thought it was normal for a long time. No one is willing to go up against Endeavor, and no one ever saw Shouto unless Dad wanted them to.” Natsuo said. “The only reason I stick around is make sure Fuyumi is safe. Once she moves out, I’m gonna get out, too.”

”What about Shouto?” Izuku wondered.

“Damned if I know,” Natsuo said with a sigh. “I mean, he got rebellious, and he talks back to the old man a lot and gets away with it, a lot of the time. They have a complicated relationship, I guess. Three more years, and Shouto will be out of school, and hopefully will be able to get out from under Endeavor’s thumb. If what you’re saying is true, it sounds like he’s starting to find himself.”

“I hope so,” Izuku said fervently. 

“Look, don’t tell him I told you all of this, okay? I don’t want him to get self conscious and pull away, just as he’s starting to make friends and show emotions other than anger. I just thought that, you know, if you’re gonna be his friend, you should know.”

“Thanks. I do want to be his friend, if he’ll let me,” Izuku said, meaning it. 

“He’s never had friends before, so he might not be good at it, at first,” Natsuo warned. “Just stick with him.”

“I will. I promise.” Izuku said.

“I’ve got a ton of homework, so I’m gonna get going. Thanks for listening.” Natsuo gave his a salute before turning and going back into the house. 

Izuku stayed outside for a while, lost in thought.

When the lights in the dojo went out, Izuku went back into the house and ran into Endeavor, who was dressed in gi and had a towel around his neck. “We’re going to be patrolling in Hosu tomorrow night. Make sure you’re well rested so that you can keep up.”

“Yes sir,” Izuku answered, feeling a surge of excitement at the announcement. Iida was in Hosu, interning with Manual. Maybe they would see him. He’d been worried that Iida hadn’t been answering any of his casual texts at all. He had a sinking suspicion that Iida was avoiding his friends, and didn’t think it was a coincidence that he had chosen an internship in Hosu.

Midoriya went to his room and laid out the futon before texting Hitoshi. He wanted to give Shouto plenty of time to bathe after his workout before taking a bath, himself. 

8:37 pm _Hey Tosh! How’s the internship going?”_

8:38 pm _Zu, I’m DYING!_ This was followed with several crying emojis.  
8:38 pm _There isn’t a part of my body that doesn’t hurt._ More emojis.  
8:39 pm _It’s so AWESOME_ Another crying emoji and several thumbs up, and (strangely) a cat emoji.  
8:39 pm _How about you?_

Izuku could tell that Hitoshi was using talk to text, because he was using complete sentences.

8:40 pm _Pretty good. I’m learning a lot but Endeavor is really strict._  
8:40 pm _We’re going into Hosu tomorrow for patrol, because nothing is really happening here. Should be fun. Hoping I’ll run into Iida. Worried about him._

8:41 pm _Me too. Hope he’s okay. Gotta get going, we do night patrols here. It’s so cool._ Sunglasses emoji.  
8:41 pm _Stay safe!_

8:42 _Stay safe, Tosh!_ Fist bump emoticon.

He plugged his phone in to charge, and gathered his pajamas and toiletries. Tomorrow was sounding like it was going to be a big day.

The day happened the same as the day before: a silent breakfast with Endeavor, and taking the train to the agency. From there, they went on patrol with _Divebomb_, then back to the agency for training and lunch. One more patrol after lunch was only an hour long. From there, they were loaded into a large van with several other sidekicks and taken to the bullet train station. The ride was only about thirty minutes long, and from there, they were broken into two teams. Izuku was assigned to patrol with two sidekicks named _Fire Bird_ and _Lucky Cat_, while Shouto was with Endeavor, _Night Terror_ and _Free Fall_. They parted ways at the station and took to the streets on foot.

“Why Hosu?” Izuku had asked Shouto on the bullet train ride.

“That’s where the hero killer was last seen,” he said. “Endeavor wants to be the one to take him down, and a lot of the newer heroes are spooked and don’t want to patrol here, much. It seems like he usually attacks at least four heroes at each location he goes to, and Ingenium has been the only one in Hosu, so far.”

Now, as Izuku walked the storefronts with his mentors, he thought it would probably be more productive to search the back allies for anyone committing a crime or murder. Maybe they weren’t doing so because he was just an intern? The sun had just set when there was a sign that something wasn’t right. There was an explosion a few blocks away, and just as they heard it, their radios crackled to life announcing that there were multiple threats all over the city. They were to rendezvous with Endeavor for further orders. Some _thing_ flew overhead with an ear-piercing shriek, drawing their attention to the air. 

“What the hell was that?” Lucky Cat shouted as people on the street began to panic and run in all directions. 

“Whatever it was, it’s not alone,” Fire bird said grimly. He was holding out his phone, showing a picture of a behemoth with an exposed brain and bulging eyes holding a box truck above it’s head, poised to throw. “This is what Free Fall just sent me. We should hurry!”

Izuku had no trouble keeping up with the others, but lost them after a couple of blocks ,when he stopped to help an elderly woman who had fallen in the growing stampede of people fleeing the streets. Once she was on her feet, others appeared and helped her, and Deku hurried to try to catch up to the others, but couldn’t see them in the crowd. There was smoke billowing in the distance that could be seen above the builings, and several car accidents seemed to be occuring in the confusion. As he was trying to direct people to seek shelter indoors, Deku noticed movement in a side alley, and tensed. 

Squinting into the darkness, he remembered the lights he’d had installed on his suit, and pressed the button at his collar to activate them. In the greenish glow he was now emitting, he could see a pair of familiarly armored legs, and dashed forward, suppressing memories of another pair of legs from a hero he’d been too late to help. He was a green blur as he burst into the alley, taking in what was happening in an instant and making decisions on instinct borne of training. He launched himself at the raggedly masked villain, who had Tenya face down on the ground with a ...was that a _sword_? With a sword pointing at his back? The villain was fast, quickly leaping backward to lessen the strength of the kick Deku aimed at him. 

“Another interruption!” the man hissed in anger or frustration. 

“Midoriya!?” Iida’s voice was incredulous. “Run! Get away! He did something to me and I can’t move! This isn’t your fight! ”

“Like hell it isn’t!” Deku snapped. He and the Hero Killer circled each other cautiously. “I’m here to save you. Is this other man still alive?” Deku didn’t dare glance at the other hero slumped against the wall, keeping his eyes trained on the villain.

“I’m alive. I can’t move, though. Not since he cut me,” the downed hero rasped.

“Not for long,” the villain told him matter-of-factly. “I was about to dispatch that phony Native, when this one came charging in to challenge me. Revenge, he said! Another fake hero in the making! Trapped by his hate and acting in his own self-interest. Your death will serve as an offering to the betterment of society!”

“I won’t let you hurt them!” Deku shouted. He was shaking in fear; the man in front of him was frankly terrifying, with a zealous tone to his voice and glint in his eyes. Deku had his phone out of his pocket and was desperately trying to text for help with one hand behind his back. He managed to choose the class email list and drop a pin on a map before he was forced to dodge a strike from his opponent. _’I’ve got to draw him away from these two, and try to hold him off until help comes,’_ he thought as he dodged an attempt at slicing him with a large serrated knife. 

The man seemed to be covered in various sheathed blades. “Why are you doing this? Who are you?” Izuku asked, trying to lead the man closer to the mouth of the alley, where they had a better chance of being noticed, so help could arrive. 

“My name is _Stain_, kid. Remember it, since the last one I left alive apparently didn’t.” He feinted toward Iida, then made a dive for the hero on the wall, blades flashing green in the glow of Deku’s suit. 

Deku hastily blocked him while managing to get a kick in to the villain’s leg, sending Stain into a roll to save himself from a fall. “No you don’t! I can’t let you kill anyone else.”

“Are you willing to die to try to stop me, boy?” Stain asked , still gripping a knife in each hand.

“If that’s what it takes. That’s was a hero does!” Deku told him without hesitation. 

“Midoriya!” Iida cried, sounding seriously distressed. “You can’t do this! It was my decision to track him down! I can’t let you die here to save me! This doesn’t involve you!”

“Shut up!” Deku snapped at him. “I can’t believe you were this stupid!”

“Hmmm...you might be the first hero since _All Might_ worthy of the title of _hero_.” Stain was looking at him fiercely, his eyes seeming to glow with green fire. “You could be a real hero one day, so I won’t kill you just yet; I’ll wait and see if you stray from the path. These two are beyond hope. It’s my duty to rid the world of this filth!”

“Not happening!” Deku snarled, blocking Stains attempt to make a move toward Iida’s prone form.

“Midoriya! Duck!” 

The sound of Shouto’s voice filled Deku with hope, even as he hit the ground a second before a ball of flame streaked overhead to drive Stain backward. 

“I could have used a little more information,” Shouto admonished him as he slipped his phone into his pocket. “The others should be here soon. The whole city is in chaos.”

“Midoriya...yes, I see it now. The League of Villains is _very_ interested in you, boy.” Stain said with a tilt to his head. “You’ve caught the attention of some very bad people.”

_’The League of Who?’_ Izuku asked himself, bewildered. 

“People like you?” Shouto demanded, stepping out with his right foot and making an ice wall between the Hero Killer and the hero slumped on the wall. “What’s the point of this? What are those things attacking everyone?”

Izuku wasn’t sure if Shouto was stalling for time until his father could arrive, or if he was genuinely hoping for answers, but he was beyond grateful that he was there. 

“Todoroki, too? This is insane! Run!” Iida cried out.

“Shut up!” both Deku and Shouto told him in unison.

“Those abominations aren’t mine,” Stain said disdainfully. “The League is responsible for that mess. Now, to fend this…”

Stain was an incredibly skilled fighter, with inhuman speed. Izuku and Todoroki took turns attempting to land hits or trap him, but it was beyond their capabilities to do more than keep the two downed heroes out of harm’s way and keep themselves alive. It became harder when Izuku was too slow in dodging, and a blade grazed his cheek. A moment later, he hit the ground like a ton of bricks, unable to move, no matter how he struggled.

“It’s the blood!” Deku called to Shouto. “As soon as he cut me, I couldn’t move!”

“He licked the knife after cutting you. He probably has to consume it,” Shouto observed. 

“This little diversion has been interesting, but I’m going to finish what I started, now.” Stain said, advancing menacingly toward Shouto. 

“Todoroki, you can’t fight him alone! We’re done for! Save yourself!” Iida’s shout bordering on panic. 

A split second later, a dagger whizzed past Shouto’s face and grazed his left cheek. In a burst of unbelievable speed, Stain was suddenly in Todoroki’s face, long grotesquely pebbled tongue swiping out to try to lick the blood starting to flow there. Igniting his left side, the flame managed to keep Stain from ingesting his blood, and drove him backward.

“Stop this!” Iida sobbed, “Just stopped. I’ve inherited my brother’s name! _I_ have to be the one to do this! He’s mine to--”

“Inherited his name?” Shouto scoffed, “The Ingenium I knew never made a face like that. Guess your family has it’s dark side, too. You want to help? Then _stand up_ and be a _hero_.”

Todoroki sent up a wall of ice to block several incoming knives, only to have Stain mock him for blocking his own view of the enemy. With a huge leap, Stain cleared the wall and was about to throw more knives , when a blur of verdant light collided with him, and Deku landed a strong punch to the middle of Stain’s back. 

“I can move again!” he shouted to the others. He took over the battle while Todoroki managed to make an ice slide to shift the fallen Native closer to where Iida was lying. 

“Do you think there’s a time limit?” Shouto asked. 

“Can’t be,” Native uttered, “I still can’t move and I was the first to be cut.”

“So, he tasted the blood from three of us, but I was the first to break free…” Deku started to mumble.

“I can think of three possible reasons for that,” Shouto said. “Either the effect gets weaker the more people he uses it on, or it involves how much blood he ingests, or…”

“Blood type,” Deku finished, following his line of reasoning. 

“Blood type? I’m B,” Native volunteered.

“I’m A,” Iida said, tears still leaking from his eyes.

“I’m O,” Deku added, “But it’s not like knowing that is going to help us at the moment.”

“Smart kids,” Stain praised, even while flicking out a small dagger and embedding it in Shouto’s arm from three meters away. 

“Gah!” Shouto hissed as he pulled the knife out in one swift yank, clamping his free hand down on the wound as it began to pour blood. “We need to get these two out of here. He’s too fast; he can dodge both my fire and ice. There’s no openings to get past him.”

“Then we’ll have to hold him off until the pros get here,” Deku said, standing shoulder to shoulder with him. You’ve got too much exposed blood; if he gets close to you, you’ll be paralyzed. You cover me from back here, while I try to keep him too distracted to go after you guys.”

“Not ideal, but it’s the best we’ve got,” Shouto agreed. “We’ll protect them, together.”

“Two against one, eh?” Stain said, eyeing them closely. “At least you’re not naive.”

Izuku charged forward as Shouto sent out a spout of fire. 

“Stop this,” Iida pleaded. “I can’t take it.”

“If you want to stop this,” Shouto told him, never taking his eyes off of Deku and Stain, “_**STAND UP! NEVER FORGET WHO YOU WANT TO BECOME!**_ ”

Several things happened at once at that moment. Stain, seeing an opening in Shouto’s fire and ice, lunged and threw Deku behind him, in a smooth move that didn’t even slow him down. He darted forward with a long, ragged sword, poised to sever Shouto’s arm, saying, “Someone should have taught you that depending on your quirk too much makes you sloppy!”

Izuku was already up and charging after Stain, when there was a _roar_ of engines and a streak of white as Tenya shot forward like a bullet from a gun, knocking Stain back. Shouto fell backward, away from the now broken sword and Stain was thrown right into Izuku’s path. Izuku managed to land a hit while dodging the blade, sliding to a stop beside Tenya and Shouto. 

“Iida!” Deku shouted in relief.

“It wore off, this guy’s quirk isn’t that great, after all,” Shouto said, sounding hopeful.

“I’m sorry,” Iida said, breathing hard, “this had nothing to do with either of you.”

“Not that again,” Deku scolded in a warning voice. He was breathing hard and trembling from fear, fatigue and the surging adrenaline. He and Iida were going to have to have a long heart-to-heart talk after this was through.

“That’s why I won’t let either of you lose any more blood here,” Iida finished.

“It’s no use pretending,” Stain admonished. “A person’s nature is not so easily changed. You’re a fake, warped by his own selfish desires! A cancer on this society warped by so-called ‘heroes’! Someone needs to correct the system.”

“So, you’re a fundamentalist zealot,” Shouto summed up flatly. “Get with the times. Iida, don’t even think of listening to this fool.”

“No,” Iida said. “He’s right. I have no right to call myself a hero. But I still won’t let him break me. If I break, then Ingenium is truly dead!”

“You’re hopeless,” Stain sneered.

Shouto raised both hands then, letting lose a huge barrage of both ice and flame simultaneously, steam billowing around them.

“Don’t be an idiot! He’s only after me and the dude in white armor! Get out!” Native shouted. “You can’t fight him! Run!”

“I don’t think he’ll let us,” Shouto said grimly. “He went through a clear change a moment ago, and he’s all fired up, too.”

In the cover of the steam and flame, Deku had taken the opportunity to turn off the lights on his suit and speed around to the far side of the alley, keeping Stain between Shouto and himself. They had to keep him contained, if they could, so he didn’t escape. He could hear Tenya talking to Shouto from where he was.

“Todoroki? Can you freeze my engine without clogging the pipes?” 

Figuring out what Iida was thinking was simple, and Deku prepared himself. As Shouto tried to do as he was asked, Stain shouted, “Stop interfering!” 

A knife sailed like and arrow toward Shouto’s head, and only Tenya’s quick thinking and reflexes had him stopping it, using his arm to block. The knife pierced his armor and buried itself in Tenya’s arm, but Shouto was safe. 

“You stay down, too!” Stain growled, throwing a much larger, heavily serrated blade that pinned Iida to the ground through the lower part of his arm.

“Iida!” Shouto shouted in alarm. 

“Just do it quickly,” Iida told him.

Shouto reached down and froze Iida’s leg, careful not to block his exhaust pipes as Tenya used his teeth to rip the knife from his arm. Meanwhile, Deku was calculating his trajectory, planning his jumps to make a move on Stain. Both heroes moved simultaneously, Deku rebounding off of the shards of ice jutting off the ground and launching himself high.  
"One For All, Full Cowling!" Izuku shouted as he drew back his fist.  
"Recipro Burst!" Iida cried.  
Iida shot off the ground and toward Stain in a low roundhouse kick. They both hit the villain at the same instant from different directions; Deku slamming a fist into Stain’s left jaw while Iida swept the killer’s legs out from under him in a punishing kick. Stain contorted grotesquely in the air before twisting, swinging wildly with yet another long knife.

“Keep him on the ropes!” Shouto shouted encouragingly from the ground.

Iida used his engines to twist in the air, delivering another kick to the villain’s back, even as Todoroki sent up a flame to envelop him, and a slide of ice to catch Deku and Tenya as they fell.

“Get up!” Shouto said urgently, as the other two slid to a stop behind him. “He’s still…”

But there was no movement from Stain. He was face down, draped over a stalagmite of ice.

“He’s out cold, right?” Izuku asked, still in a fighting stance.

“Let’s tie him up and get him out to the main road,” Todoroki said, trying to catch his breath. “Do you see any rope we can use?”

“We should search him for more weapons, too. If I didn’t already know his quirk, I would think it was making knives from thin air,” Izuku said, pulling open the snap on a pocket on his utility belt.

He pulled out a roll of capture tape and several zip-ties and offered them to Shouto. Native was starting to be able to move, and came over to help. Even with all of the blades Stain had thrown, they still found seventeen more of varying sizes and shapes hidden all over his outfit. 

They limped out to the main road, Shouto supporting Tenya, whose leg and arm were injured, Native keeping a close eye on Deku, who had one arm hanging at an odd angle, even as he dragged Stain behind him. Almost as soon as they stepped into the light of the main road, deserted except for heroes, now that the danger was being addressed and everyone had fled indoors. 

Native said, “I’m sorry, even though I’m the pro here, all I did was get in the way.”

“That would have happened to anyone fighting him one on one,” Izuku comforted. “He’s just too strong.”

“Even in a three-on-one fight, we only won because he screwed up.” Todoroki agreed. “With Iida’s final recipro and Midoriya’s strike; I think he was so mad, he forgot that the effect of his quirk would wear off of Iida when it did.”

“Both of you were wounded because of me,” Iida said, bending in a deep bow, tears in his eyes. “I’m so terribly sorry! I was so blinded by my anger that I lost sight of everything.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Izuku said contritely, sympathetic tears pooling in his own eyes.. “I’m supposed to be your friend, but I completely misjudged how upset you were about it.”

“Pull yourselves together,” Shouto said, not unkindly. “You’re our class reps, aren’t you?”

Both boys sniffed and wiped their eyes, straightening and visibly pulling themselves together.

“Yes,” Iida said.

“You’re right,” Izuku nodded.

“Shouto!” Roared Endeavor as he caught sight of them from down the block.

“Deku-kun!” Fire Bird exclaimed with relief, jogging up to them. “We lost you back at...Holy shit, kid, _is that the Hero Killer?_”

The other heroes and sidekicks gathered around to have a look, their attention caught by the bound villain, until Manual spotted Tenya and gasped. “These kids are injured! Get an ambulance!”

A couple of sidekicks scrambled off you summon help. Izuku finally began to relax, the ordeal was mostly over. Of course, there would probably be hell to pay once Endeavor found out what they’d done. He took a tentative step away from Native to check on Tenya and Shouto’s injuries in the light, when someone shouted, “Get down!”

A split second later, another of the abominations with exposed brains, this one with wings, swooped out of the sky like a missile. Before he could even register what was happening, Izuku felt talons dig into his ribs in a bruising grip as he lifted into the air, watching as the ground and his friends got further away. He dipped and rose with each beat of leathery wings, carrying him higher off the ground to take him who-knew-where.

He could vaguely hear shouting below him, but was trying in vain to swing his legs up to kick the beast and get free. Suddenly the creature bellowed out an ear piercing, _screeeeeeeeeeee!_ and released Deku. Expecting a freefall to the ground, Izuku was stunned to feel a strong arm wrap around him as they descended. Instead of a painful impact, there was only a slightly jarring one as he was dropped on the ground and he was able to see his rescuer. Stain stood over him, no longer bound in zip-ties and capture tape, a small knife in his hand, his disfigured face bare of his mask. _Where did he get a knife?_ Izuku wondered wildly as he rolled away and to his feet in a fighting stance.

“You’re the only one here worth keeping alive, kid. Don’t stray from the path of a true hero, or I’ll have to add you to my list.” Stain said in a raspy whisper. “My purge is for the sake of a better society. If I don’t regain my hero status…”

“HERO KILLER!,” Endeavor roared, lifting a hand to roast Stain where he stood. Manual shouted at him to stop, since Deku was still in range.

“None of.” 

Step. Killing intent poured off of Stain in waves.

“You fakes.” 

Step. Most of the gathered crowd took an intimidated step backward.

“Can.” 

Step. Endeavor hesitated, seeming almost fascinated.

“Kill.” 

Step. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath.

“Me...” 

Step. You could have heard a pin drop in the street.

Stain stopped where he stood, one foot in front of the other, but the fire in his eyes had gone out. The bloodlust that had all but choked the air a moment ago faded away, leaving a confused and awkward silence behind.

“I think...I think he’s unconscious,” Izuku said cautiously.

It was true. Stain was still on his feet, but he was down for the count.

They were taken to Hosu General Hospital for treatment. Stain had been taken into custody, two of the creatures had been captured alive, and the third and fourth bodies were taken away for examination.

Midoriya, Iida and Todoroki were all put in a four bed room, with the fourth bed vacant for the night. Iida had both arms in slings, Shouto had one arm bandaged and stitches in his right cheek where Stain’s first cut had gotten him. Izuku had a matching cut on his own cheek that had taken five stitches to close. Izuku had a bandaged arm and leg (he hadn’t even realized that he’d hurt is leg), and three cracked ribs from the winged creature that had snatched him, so his torso was bound tightly. 

“How much trouble do you think we’re going to be in for this?” Izuku asked, as they all lay in the darkened room, unable to sleep.

“From Endeavor, or the police?” Shouto asked quietly.

“This is all my fault,” Tenya lamented. 

“Really?” Shouto asked, a hint of sarcasm in his voice. “You made Stain hunt heroes, and set those _things_ loose in the city?”

“He’s right,” Izuku said. “Any of us could have run into Stain in all of the Chaos, though it was beyond reckless to go looking for him, yourself.”

“You do realize how lucky we were, right?” Shouto said. “With as injured as all of us are, it’s like he was toying with us.”

“He clearly didn’t want to hurt Midoriya,” Tenya said. “Because he was acting like a true hero.”

“He said that I caught someone’s attention, or something like that,” Izuku said with a slight shiver. 

“He said it was the League of Villains,” Shouto recalled. ”He said they were some very bad people.”

“I don’t think you’d want to meet anyone even Stain considers bad people,” Tenya said.

“I didn’t even remember it until the police asked me about it,” Izuku said, “Stain said that he didn’t have anything to do with those monster things that attacked the city.”

“He blamed ‘The League’ for it,” Shouto said. “The police had never heard of them.”

“Something tells me they’re going to become really familiar with them, really fast,” Tenya said ominously. “Those creatures caused a lot of damage and injuries!”

“Sounds like a League of Villains to me,” Izuku said around a jaw-cracking yawn. “Even if it _is_ a stupid name.”

“We should get to sleep,” Iida said, shifting to try to find a comfortable position, while both arms were in a sling. 

“I can’t relax in a hospital bed,” Shouto said with a sigh. “I wish they had futons.”

Izuku chuckled a bit at the mental image, but was feeling the pull of drowsiness. His dreams were full of creatures with exposed brains, carrying swords and swooping through burning skies.

“Midoriya,” he felt a hand shake his shoulder, and instinct had him on his feet and in a fighting stance before his eyes had fully opened. When he became aware of where he was, he was surprised to see Iida sitting up in his bed, looking at him with wide eyes and Shouto standing nearby. Shouto had apparently been the one to wake him.

“Nice reflexes,” Shouto said, seeming genuinely impressed. “I didn’t mean to startle you. You were thrashing in your sleep and had those red lines starting to show all over your body. Your quirk?”

“Oh! I’m sorry I woke you guys!” Izuku let his arms fall to his sides and stood normally. “I was dreaming. Uh...yes! My quirk does that, sometimes.”

“We were going to wake you soon, anyway. A nurse came in and said the doctor would be here soon, to see if we could go home today.” Iida said.

“The vigilantes are awake, I see!” came a voice from the doorway as it swung open. 

Gran Torino stood in the doorway, and Izuku swallowed hard. He was in for it now; if they’d called Gran about this, it meant he was in real trouble, didn’t it? Manual followed Gran in, and Iida quickly scrambled off of his bed to stand, though he looked like he was facing a firing squad. Todoroki was the only one of them that looked calm. When a tall figure followed Manual, Izuku had expected Endeavor, but instead, a giant of a man with the head of a dog entered the room.

“You’re still gonna get chewed out,” Gran told Izuku, going to stand near him. “But first, you three have a visitor. Meet Tsuragamae Kenji-San: Chief of Hosu Police.”

“_Uh-oh,”_ Izuku thought, heart sinking. _”Here it comes._”

“So, you’re the Yuuei students who put an end to the Hero Killer. *_Woof_*” Tsuragamae said.

*_Woof?!_* Izuku thought wildly, wondering if he was going to have a panic attack. _Chief of Police?!_ He flashed a glance at Gran, but he was as unreadable as usual. Manual didn’t give any clues about how worried he should be, either.

“As to the Hero Killer,” the Chief continued, “he is currently in custody and undergoing treatment for various serious injuries, burns and broken bones. A broken rib punctured one of his lungs, and that was what finally stopped him. *_Woof_*”

Izuku automatically mentally attributed the broken ribs to Iida’s final kick, and the burns to Todoroki as he tried to recall all of the details of the fight. Surely they wouldn’t be held responsible for the injuries they doled out while fighting a villain with murderous intent?

“At the dawn of this extraordinary era, the police moved to prioritize leadership and maintain the status quo...so they decided _not_ to use quirks as weapons,” The Chief explained, seeing intent on giving them a history lesson. “The profession of _hero_ was one that was created to fill that void. *_Woof_* Authorizing the use of such might...of these powers that could so easily kill...was a heavily criticized decision at first, but would soon garner public support. All because your predecessors acted morally and complied with the laws. *_Woof_*”

He paused to eye all of them, to make sure they understood what he was saying. “But those without permission; those who inflicted harm without explicit instructionfrom the police and the powers that be, even when facing someone like the Hero Killer, such actions would represent a stunning breach of the law! *_Woof_*”

Izuku was trembling by now. Were they being branded criminals? His breathing became more shallow, and only the gentle feel of Todoroki pressing a hand to his elbow grounded him as he stayed riveted to Tsuragamae’s words.

“You three, as well as your pro-hero mentors, Manual and Endeavor, the five of you must be dealt this strictly and impartially,” the Chief said firmly, his back ramrod straight.

“Hold on a minute,” Shouto said, sounding angry. Now it was Izuku who was putting a hand out to steady Todoroki as the boy stepped forward. “Native would be dead if Iida hadn’t acted, and they would _both_ be dead of Izuku hadn’t shown up. Nobody even knew that the Hero Killer was in town.”

Izuku knew that wasn’t strictly true; they had come here specifically looking for the Hero Killer, after all.

“Should we have let people die in the name of your law?” Shouto demanded, ignoring Izuku’s attempts to calm him. “Everything turned out fine, so just forget about the law, this time! Isn’t it a hero’s _job_ to save people?”

“Clearly, you have a lot to learn. Some education you’re getting, *_woof_* from Yuuei and Endeavor.”

“You mutt…” Shouto began, shrugging off Izuku and ignoring Iida, who was trying to impress the seriousness of the situation on him.

Gran stepped forward and held up his hands, “Wait...just listen to what he’s got to say!”

“All of that is what I’m obligated to tell you, as the police. The real question is whether or not to deal with this publicly. *_Woof_* If we let the story out, you’ll all be lauded by the public, but you won’t be able to avoid punishment. _But_ if we keep this nasty business to ourselves… the Hero Killer’s burns will support the story that _Endeavor_ was the key operative. He’ll receive the accolades.*_Woof_*”

Izuku finally understood. This was a major cover up! To avoid getting in trouble with the law, and possibly being expelled and losing his chance to legally become a hero, they had to give up the credit for taking down Stain. _”Fine by me!”_ he thought gratefully. 

“Fortunately, the number of eyewitnesses was small enough that we can hush up the whole matter before it causes a problem.*_Woof_*” Tsuragamaie told them. “But in that case, your decisive actions and achievements will remain unknown to the general public. What do you say? I’m an understanding man. When it comes to a promising group of young people, I’d rather not have to pursue charges over this admittedly _massive_ indiscretion. . *_Woof!_*”

Before any of them could answer, Manual spoke up. “Either way, it’s _our_ negligence as mentors that is to blame. We have to take responsibility.”

Tenya hastily bent in a deep bow. “I am deeply sorry.”

Manual delivered a sharp smack to Tenya’s head with the side of his hand and said without venom, “Yeah! You caused a lot of trouble for me! Don’t let it happen again!”

All three boys bowed to the police chief and murmured, “Thank you for everything!”

“The world is an unfair place,” the chief said seriously. “You’ll receive none of the commendations you might have otherwise had, but at least, as someone invested in keeping the peace, _I_ can thank you.” He bent at the waist in a ninety degree bow.

”You could have said that sooner,” Todoroki muttered quietly, seeming embarrassed by his earlier outburst.. 

Izuku grinned at the faint dusting of red that appeared on his friend’s cheeks.

He walked with Gran into the hallway, and got an earful of scolding, but nothing nearly as bad as he’d been expecting. Mostly he’d been scolded for scaring the man half to death, and about how lucky he was to be alive. After that, his phone rang and Uraraka was checking up on him, worried that he’d sent a location and nothing more. THEN it was Hitoshi, who sounded dead tired, but worried. 

By the time he got back to the room, his head was practically spinning from all of the scolding and questions he’d been barraged with. “Iida, I just got off the phone with Uraraka, and…”

“Midoriya,” Shouto interrupted. “Iida just got his diagnosis.”

Izuku stopped what he’d been about to say, and looked at Iida with concern.

“I...I might have permanent nerve damage in my left hand,” Tenya said. “Stain severed something called the brachial plexus nerve. They say I might be able to regain most of the feeling and use of the hand if I get a nerve transplant.”

Izuku’s heart beat heavily in his chest. This was such terrible news for his friend, and could hamper him in a lot of ways. 

“When I found the Hero Killer, my mind went blank. I couldn’t see past my anger and hatred. I didn’t want anything more or less than to kill him with my own hands for what he had done...what he had taken from Tensei,” Iida confessed. “I may hate Stain, but he wasn’t wrong. I’m not fit to be a hero. My left hand is going to be a reminder of that; I won’t be getting it repaired until I can call myself a _true_ hero.”

“Iida,” Izuku said, looking at his scarred hand, a reminder that he should have tried harder and been smarter. “I feel the same way.”

Izuku thought of how many times he could have…_should_ have noticed Iida’s frame of mind and the pain he was feeling.

“Let’s get stronger. Together.”

“I’m sorry,” Todoroki suddenly told them, looking distressed. “Whenever I’m involved, it seems like people’s hands get messed up. It might be a curse.”

Izuku and Iida’s heads turned to stare at him incredulously. “What are you even talking about?” Izuku laughed.

“It looks like even Todoroki can make a joke,” Iida said with a smile.

“I’m not joking,” Todoroki said nervously. “Just call me, ‘_The Hand Crusher_,’ or something.”

“THE HAND CRUSHER!” Izuku and Iida exclaimed in unison, dissolving into fits of laughter.

Todoroki seemed comforted by their laughter, perhaps because they didn’t believe him to be a threat to their safety. 

“Hey, Shouto...I mean... Todoroki, did the doctor say we could be released today?”

“You might as well just keep calling me Shouto,” the boys said. “It will be less confusing. Yes. He said we would be released after breakfast.”

“You can both keep calling me Tenya, as well,” Iida told them. “Maybe it will help remind me that I have a lot of growing to do before I can take on the name _Ingenium_ as my brother asked.”

“Then you guys can call be Izuku, if you want. Or Deku works, too,” he said, feeling it would be awkward to call them by their given names and not have the reverse be true.

Shouto made a face. “I’ll stick with Izuku. Calling you Deku outside of hero work is too…_Bakugou_.”

Izuku laughed at that; Shouto saying Bakugou as though it was a verb was pretty funny and endearing. “Heaven forbid!”

“Izuku it is!” Tenya agreed.

Their breakfast was served a short time later, and the doctor signed them off of service. Gran came in with the paperwork taken care of and gave Izuku a small bag with a change of clothes in it. Jeans and… “Is this a new _All Might_ hoodie?” he asked, pulling the item from the bag.

“I thought you could use a reminder of who you’re always sayin’ you want to be like,” Gran told him gruffly.

Shouto helped him put it on, since his ribs were still bound pretty tightly. It was soft, and had a print of the hero’s original costume design on the front. “Thanks, Gran.” He said softly. “I’ll remember.”

“Because of all this mess and your injuries, your internship has been cut short,” Gran told him. “You should be glad, because Endeavor looked fit to be tied when I saw him a few minutes ago. You might want to get a move on, so you can get out of here without him takin’ a strip off your hide for the trouble you’re causin’ him.”

Izuku’s gaze turned quickly to Shouto’s, worried about how Endeavor’s mood might affect his son. Shouto didn’t seem particularly worried, but he also didn’t look happy about the news.  
“Are you going to be okay?” Izuku asked him cautiously. He didn’t want to give away any personal details with the others in the room. “I mean, the internship is over for me, but you still have to deal with the fallout.”

“It’ll be fine,” Shouto assured him. “He’ll yell a lot, but in the end, what can he really complain about? He’s going to get credit for a huge apprehension and that’ll come with a huge boost in popularity and an even bigger paycheck.”

“I guess…” Izuku said, still unsure. “If you ever want to, you can come hang out at my house. I’ll text you my address.”

“Thanks?” It sounded almost like a question, and it occurred to Izuku that Shouto had probably never been invited to a friend’s house before in his life.

Izuku just smiled at him with a nod. “You, too, Tenya! Do you know how you’re getting home, yet? You can ride on the train with me and Gran.”

“Thank you, Izuku, but my parents are on their way. I’ve just received a text.”

Izuku hoped Tenya wasn’t just being polite; he didn’t know how he could read a text with his hands all wrapped up like that. “If you’re sure…”

“Quite sure,” he said with a smile. “Thank you, Izuku. You’re a good friend. I’m sorry I didn’t treat you like one, before.”

Izuku said his goodbyes and left with Gran, thankfully avoiding Endeavor somehow. They arrived back home two hours later, and Izuku felt like he’d run a marathon without his quirk. Gran’s ancient cat came trotting out of the living room, rumbling at both of them in greeting and rubbing on Izuku’s legs before disappearing into the kitchen. No sooner had Izuku set his bag in his room than the doorbell was ringing. He took his time walking down the hall, feeling stiff and sore after the long trip home, and was surprised to hear Gran call out to him to stay upstairs.

“Damn press is already on the doorstep,” he growled, climbing the stairs and heading for his room. “I’m gonna give Tsukauchi a call and see if he can’t send some officers by to clear them out. Damn vultures!”

Izuku didn’t know why he was surprised to hear that the press had found him. The capture of the Hero Killer was a big deal, and his involvement as a bystander and almost-victim was probably being used as a cover for why he’d been on the scene in the first place. He could practically see the headline now: _ENDEAVOR SAVES YUUEI INTERNS FROM HERO KILLER!_

He didn’t mind not getting credit, but he didn’t want to have to talk to reporters about it, either. He sent a text to both Tenya and Shouto to let them know to look out for the press, and another to Hitoshi to warn him, in case he came over once his internship was done. That wasn’t such a big deal; since Hitoshi still had four days left with his mentor. Surely they would have given up by then.

He glanced out the window of his bedroom to see half a dozen reporters on the walk in front of the house, and sighed. It was going to be like being under house arrest; not that he had anywhere to go, anyway. 

After a nap, he managed to get up and have lunch, then started on the essay he was sure Aizawa was going to assign the class once they returned to school on Monday. It was hard to believe that final exams were just around the corner, already. The rest of the week crawled by. The police sent a patrol to clear out the reporters every few hours, but they always came back almost immediately. With Gran helping Izuku re-wrap his ribs and checking his bandages instead of taking him out of the house, where reporters were sure to be waiting to ambush them, Izuku counted down the remaining time until he could see his friends again and return to school.


	15. Prepping for Finals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Internships are over and finals are upon them! Hitoshi helps a thick-headed Izuku come to a realization.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! I got a lot of writing done over the week because of only working one job a day during the school's October Break (I work at a school, I'm not a student), so I'm posting another chapter on top of the one I'll post later this week!
> 
> Obviously Dead Might can’t administer the exam, so I changed things up a bit. Most of the pairings stayed the same, but I had to come up with someone to come in to do one of the exams. I picked one from the top hero listings that I had the most questions about.

On Sunday, Hitoshi suddenly appeared at Izuku’s bedroom door, holding a kitten in his arms and smirking at the look of surprise on his friend’s face. “I let myself in,” Hitoshi told him, holding out the fluffy, striped feline for Izuku to take. “This is Gomi. He was abandoned in a trash can.” 

“So you named it _’Trash?’_” Izuku asked, automatically skritching the purring puddle of fur behind the ears. It’s long hair looked recently washed and brushed. For something so small, it sure sounded a lot like one of Tenya’s leg engines. “How’d you get past the reporters?”

“Zu...you wouldn’t _believe_ some of the skills I learned this week!” Hitoshi said enthusiastically. “Getting into your house without them seeing me was a breeze!”

“Come on in! I want to hear all about it!” Izuku grinned. He turned and sat on his desk chair, leaving Hitoshi to flop on the bed.

“Dude… you were up against the Hero Killer, and you want to hear about _my_ week? Spill! I’ve been giving you space and didn’t want to risk talking on the phone about it, but I overheard my mentor talking to Pr--another hero about the police covering up what _really_ happened. So...what really happened?”

Of _course_ he did. Izuku was more than a little relieved that he didn’t have to hide the truth from his best friend. He was already struggling with him not knowing the truth about One For All, and only kept that secret for his friend’s own protection. So, he told the story as it had really happened, knowing he could trust Hitoshi to keep it to himself.

“Holy shit, Zu!” Hitoshi looked floored by everything he’d heard. “How many people know about this?”

“Not many. Obviously Endeavor, Manual, Shouto, Tenya and Gran. The Chief of the Hosu police. Native. Stain. Endeavor’s sidekicks. You. That’s pretty much it. I don’t even know if they’ll tell Tenya’s parents the truth.” Izuku listed off, trying to think if there were any more witnesses. “Apparently your mentor… how did your mentor find out? And he was telling someone else?!”

“It’s okay!” Hitoshi jumped up when it looked like Izuku might be on the verge of a panic attack. “Calm down! I don’t know if he knows the whole truth or not, just that there was a cover up because something other than what was reported on the news went down. I’d trust my mentor with _anything_, Zu. Even this.”

Izuku took a deep breath, and nodded. Gomi took the opportunity to climb Izuku’s torso like a tree trunk, and settle on his shoulder to rumble loudly in his ear. It would have been endearing and funny, if it weren’t for the fact that it was keeping it’s perch by digging it’s needly little claws into his skin. “You trust him that much?”

“Yes.” Hitoshi answered without hesitation.

“Okay,” Izuku accepted, taking a steadying breath. “Okay. I’d trust you with my life, so if you say it’s okay, then...okay.” The kitten’s purring was oddly soothing, helping to ease some of his tension.

Gran poked his head in at that moment, to see who Izuku was talking to. “How the hell did you get in here? I’ve got the alarm set and cameras on!” 

“I’ve got SKILLZ, now, Gran!” Hitoshi smiled winningly at the old man.

Gran scowled at him without heat. “Damn kids are gonna give me a heart attack,” he groused. “What’s that...a cat?”

“Yep!” Hitoshi got up and ripped it off of Izuku’s shoulder like velcro, causing his friend to yelp at the dragging claws. It was still rumbling loudly. “Meet Gomi! He’s going to live here, now!”

“Wait. What?” Izuku asked, doing a double take.

“You named a cat _Trash_?” Gran asked with a smirk, taking the kitten from Hitoshi. It squirmed in Gran’s hold and climbed his arm to his shoulder, much as he had done to Izuku.

“Says the guy who named his other cat after a demon?” Hitoshi asked with a lifted eyebrow.

“Akubozu is a fine name for a devil of a cat,” Gran said, as if offended.

“Back up...why’s he living here, now?” Izuku asked. He wasn’t angry, merely confused. 

“I couldn’t leave him in the trash, but I also couldn’t take him home. Takeshi’s allergic.” he said, as if the next most logical step was to force it on his best friend.

“One more cat ain’t gonna’ hurt anything,” Gran declared as the cat rubbed it’s face against his head and beard in an obvious scent marking way and looked at him with huge green eyes.

“Softy,” Izuku teased with a smile. Gran had clearly already taken a liking to the kitten, not seeming to care about the little daggers in its toes.

“Thanks, Gran. There were actually three of them, but my mentor took one, and he found a home for the other,” Hitoshi said. 

Hitoshi stayed for a little while longer, but eventually had to go home, since his family had missed him the past week.

Izuku was glad that the police had sent a patrol just before he had to leave for school the next day, so he didn’t have to fight reporters to get out of the house. Hitoshi met him at the train station, and they traveled to Yuuei together for their first day back in a week.

In hindsight, Izuku should have known there would be press outside the gates of the school. They had left early so that Izuku could go and get a check up from Recovery Girl before homeroom, to make sure his injuries were healing properly. There was no way that they were going to sneak in with a crowd of other students and go unnoticed. He tensed up when he saw them, but Hitoshi just sighed and stepped forward when they started advancing on the pair with their microphones out.

“You’re all probably wondering why I called you here, today,” Hitoshi said loudly when they started shouting questions. There was a brief pause as the absurdity of his behavior was absorbed and dismissed.

“Get outta the way, kid!” one of the reporters called out, sounding annoyed.

“Funny,” another reporter drawled, trying to shove past Hitoshi. “You’re Midoriya Izuku, right? You were there when Endeavor took down the Hero Killer, Stain, right?”

_**“AaaaROOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”**_ Hound Dog appeared between the boys and the press in a single leap, facing the reporters with a howling snarl. Hitoshi and Izuku sidled past, Hound Dog deftly keeping himself a barrier so that they could get past. Once they were through the gates, they were met by Nezu, who was sitting on Aizawa’s shoulder.

“Ah! Boys! Welcome back!” Nezu greeted them cheerfully. “Please excuse us for being tardy in repelling the press. I’m sure they’ll lose interest in another day or two. You’re quite early, today!”

“Yes, sir! Thank you! I was told to go and see Recovery Girl before homeroom, so she could check my injuries and make sure I’m healing up alright,” Izuku explained.

“Then, off you go!” Nezu said, seemingly unconcerned about why the press were there to begin with.

“See you in homeroom,” Aizawa told them, sounding tired. “Don’t be late.”

They scurried off, and Izuku was fussed over by Recovery Girl, who removed his bandages and gave him a kiss to speed up any residual healing he might need. Tenya arrived only a few minutes after Izuku and received the same treatment. 

“I can’t fix that nerve damage, my dear, I can only speed up what your own body can do,” she said, sounding genuinely regretful. 

Shouto came in just as they were about to leave for class and got his own kiss, then they all walked to homeroom together. Izuku had briefly spoken with both Tenya and Shouto the night before,and let them know that Hitoshi knew their secret. Tenya had scolded him a bit, but Shouto had simply said he understood.

By now, there were students walking the halls, and while there were some whispers and pointing, no one attempted to speak with them about Stain. The four of them gathered around Shouto’s desk and were talking quietly as their other classmates trickled in, all talking excitedly about their week spent with pro heroes. Uraraka in particular was all fired up. It seemed that each of them had experienced a different aspect of what a hero’s job was like, but the most incredible change had been...Bakugou.

“SERIOUSLY, BAKUGOU? SERIOUSLY?” Kaminari, Sero and Kirishima all cried, laughing uproariously at the sight of Bakugou’s hair, which was smoothed down in a perfect side part; a huge departure from his normally spiky style.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Bakugou shouted at them. “It just sticks this way no matter how much I wash it!”

”It looks nice,” Shouto said to no one in particular. 

“IT’S A PERFECT 2:8 HAIR RATIO!” the boys had tears in their eyes and were gasping for breath in their hilarity as they continued to tease Bakugou and snap pictures with their phones.

“SHUT UP! KEEP IT UP AND I’LL MURDER YOU ALL!” Bakugou roared.

All at once, Bakugou’s hair seemed to answer the call of his rage and _exploded_ back into fluffy spikes all over his head.

“IT’S BACK!” Sero shouted, laughing even harder.

Izuku almost missed it...but just before he looked away, he noticed Shouto’s face turning bright red. Alarmed, he was about to ask if everything was all right when Shouto let out a strangled sound as though he were choking. It almost seemed like something was caught in his throat as he got progressively redder to the point that he was almost purple, then he let it out:

“_PPFFFFTT!_” he wheezed out, then took a deep gulp of air and tears of mirth welled in his eyes as he laughed almost silently. It almost looked painful; he was doubled over at his desk laughing so hard, while making hardly any sound. 

Izuku was _amazed_. Thinking quickly, he pulled out his phone and took a burst of photos, then another for good measure. 

“He’s really losing his shit!” Hitoshi said in wonder as Shouto gasped for more air before starting all over again..

“Oh my god, Todoroki’s _laughing_!” Ashido said excitedly. 

The whole class stopped whatever they were doing, and simply stared open-mouthed for a minute before joining in, laughing at _his_ laughter. While Izuku was a little sad that he hadn’t been the one to draw a laugh out of Shouto, he was beyond grateful that _someone_ had, even unintentionally. Laughter was an excellent stress reliever! 

“What the fuck, Half n’ Half?” Bakugou asked, baffled by his rival’s breakdown.

This only seemed to make him laugh more, and Izuku was becoming alarmed at the shade of red Shouto was attaining. He finally put a hand on the boy’s shoulder to try to ground him a little, and the color slowly started to recede from his face. His breathing slowly started to even out, and he straightened. Tenya offered him a handkerchief to dry his face with, and everyone calmed down.

“Sorry,” Shouto said when he was finally back to normal. “I don’t know what happened.”

Izuku squeezed his shoulder before letting go, and moving to slide into his own seat. Everyone was startled when Aizawa cleared his throat from the front of the room. No one had noticed his arrival with the commotion. He didn’t scold them at all for not being in their seats on time, and simply started talking, making announcements and assigning them the essay that Izuku had already finished two days ago. It was kind of odd to be back at school and having normal classes after the week he'd had, but Izuku took comfort in the routine. 

After lunch, Aizawa told them to change, then took them out to training ground Gamma and told them he wanted to evaluate what they’d learned during their internships. It was a race through an industrial landscape with pipes, cranes, factories and allies to navigate.

“You’ll have starting points at the border of the field,” Aizawa explained. “You’ll be broken up into four groups of five, and you’ll race to my location, somewhere in the middle. I’ll send up a flare as the starting signal. This is supposed to be a mock rescue race, so keep property damage to a minimum.” 

“I get it,” Bakugou growled, “Everyone can quit staring at me!”

“Let’s just get started.” Aizawa divided the groups, then showed them the starting points, telling each group to leave one person at each point. The first group consisted of Izuku, Tenya, Sero, Ashido and Ojiro. Once the first group went, he’d send up a flare for the second to start, and so on, until they were all gathered, again. Once Aizawa disappeared into the training field, they began stretching and getting ready to run. 

A few minutes later, the flare shot into the sky and began to descend, and Izuku took off into the maze of buildings and equipment. Bouncing off of two buildings to get the height he wanted, Izuku took to the rooftops and cranes, tackling the area parkour-style, keeping his eyes on the spot the flare had been. He felt like he was making good time, and that perhaps his speed had increased. He ramped up the amount of One For All to about seventeen percent, and didn’t feel as though he was suffering any backlash, and let out a _whoop!_ of joy as he flew toward the goal. He might have beaten the others, too, if he hadn’t missed seeing a patch of grease on the pipe he was rebounding off of. His enhanced tread was no match for industrial machine lubricant, and his foot slipped off the pipe, causing him to nearly fall to the ground twenty meters below. He managed to save himself at the last moment, but it cost him precious seconds, and he landed on a large platform next to Aizawa just a couple of heartbeats behind Sero, who was looking impressed with both himself and Deku.

Ojiro was the next to arrive, only about fifteen seconds behind Izuku, and Sero. Iida was next; he’d been slowed down by staying on the ground where there were a lot of tight turns and blind corners. He was in his gym uniform because his costume was out for repair, and Izuku wondered if that might also have affected his performance. He was already taking out his notebook to jot down a quick note when Ahido arrived, panting heavily from exertion.

“Not bad,” Aizawa told them all. “You’ve all improved, some.” He raised the flare gun once more and signaled the second team to begin.

“I thought I’d be able to beat you all, easily,” Sero admitted sheepishly. “This kind of terrain is perfect for my quirk and staying airborne! I didn’t know Midoriya had those kinds of moves!”

“I don’t get to use them all that often,” Izuku lamented, “But this was fun! I wonder if we’re allowed to come out here to train outside of school hours.”

“Not without a qualified chaperone,” Aizawa said from where he was watching the progress of the others through binoculars. 

Izuku was sure there were cameras all over to record their moves and mistakes, and that Aizawa would probably be reviewing it all later. Being a hero studies teacher seemed like a _lot_ of work. He didn’t feel right asking him to chaperone extra training on top of everything else he had on his plate, including his pro hero work. He wondered who else on campus was qualified.

“I can see a couple of them, now,” Tenya said, holding a hand over his eyes to shade them from the bright sun. “Bakugou is really flying! Yaoyarozu has made some sort of pole vaulting device to get from rooftop to rooftop...and is that Shinsou? He’s fast!”

Izuku turned in the direction that Tenya was looking as he pulled a pair of compact field glasses out of one of his utility pockets and looked. Hitoshi had a bo-staff in one hand and was racing along a rooftop. He used it much like a vaulting pole to aid him in his jumps, but he was just plain _fast_ and determined. Izuku knew from experience that Hitoshi liked to be competitive and would push himself to give his best performance. He came to a tension wire between two buildings, anchoring a tower of some sort, and he used the staff to ride the wire like a zip line. He was really putting on an impressive show!

Bakugou arrived first, of course, then Uraraka, who had used her gravity nullifying quirk on her own body to great effect. Hitoshi rolled onto the platform next, meeting Izuku with a fist bump, wiping sweat from his brow.

“Sick moves, dude!” Sero congratulated him with a slap on the shoulder. Yaoyorzu and Hagakure arrived, finishing the second wave of students. The other two rounds went just as well, with everyone showing off impressive moves. Aizawa seemed satisfied that none of them had wasted their time in the past week, and lead them all back to the school. Once back in their uniforms, he had some announcements to make.

“Summer vacation is close at hand. It would be completely irrational for you all to take a month off of school.”

“Don’t tell me…” Kirishima said expectantly.

“You’ll all be participating in a summer training camp in the woods,” Aizawa told them.

There were approving comments and speculation all over the classroom at this news. Excitement about possible fireworks, games of truth or dare, and open air baths made them all talkative. Izuku wasn’t so sure that was the kind of camp this was going to be. Aizawa didn’t seem like the fireworks and campfire songs type of teacher. Hitoshi didn’t seem to think so either, if his expression was anything to go by. Shouto simply looked intrigued by the idea, and had probably never been camping or anywhere else without his father pushing him. 

“The parameters of our quirks will probably change in a natural environment,” Izuku speculated, already thinking ahead.

“Challenging us to rise to the occasion in any environment does sound interesting,” Yaoyorozu added with an approving nod.

“Eating and sleeping with the whole class? This is going to be so cool!” Hagakure squealed.

“_However,_” Aizawa said, bringing a halt to their frivolity, “If any of you should fail to pass the end-of-term tests, you’ll be stuck in school, in remedial class hell.”

“Let’s do our best, everyone!” Kirishima called out, hand fisted with determination.

“What a crock,” Bakugou muttered derisively. 

Several of Bakugou’s friends looked distinctly panicked at the moment, and it didn’t escape Izuku’s attention that the explosive teen didn’t say no to Kirishima when he turned and begged Bakugou to help him study. At least he got along with _somebody_.

Ashido and Kaminari had their heads in their hands, despair clear in their expressions, wailing, “We’re gonna fail! We’re gonna fail!”

“Weren’t you attending class?” Todoroki (ranked number five in class) asked in confusion, “How could you possibly fail?”

“Words can hurt, you know!” Kaminari wept dramatically, clutching at his chest as if wounded.

“Momo!” Ashido turned pleading eyes to Yaoyorozu, “You get really good grades, don’t you? Do you think you could lead a study group or something?”

“Studying together is an excellent idea!” Tenya said approvingly. 

“You want my help? Really?” Yaoyorozu looked thrilled at the prospect.

“C’mon guys! Wouldn’t it be great if we could all go to training camp together?” Izuku said encouragingly.

“If it’s academics you need help on,” Yaoyorozu (who was ranked first in academics) said eagerly, “I’d be happy to help you!” Her shoulders suddenly drooped and her expression turned gloomy as she added, “The practical, on the other hand…”

More classmates gathered around Momo’s desk, also wanting help with studying. 

“Quadratic equations are tripping me up,” Jiro said sheepishly.

“I need help with Kanji!” Sero said in a pleading tone! 

“My English needs serious work,” Ojiro added.

Momo looked absolutely elated to be the center of positive attention. “Yes!” she cried, “Of course I’ll help!”

The others cheered.

Izuku smirked when he heard Kirishima tell Bakugou, “That’s what virtue looks like.”

“I’ll show you _virtue_,” Bakugou scowled at the redhead, “I’m gonna tutor you ‘til you’re dead!”

“I knew I could count on you!” Kirishima said cheerfully, having gotten what he wanted.

The discussion continued through lunch about what the academics portion would likely contain, and the possibilities of the practical exam. 

“It will probably just be a comprehensive list of stuff we’ve learned so far,” Hitoshi said, picking up his bowl of ramen.

“We’ve had basic hero training, rescue training and battle training,” Uraraka listed off. “That doesn’t sound too bad. “We didn’t all do the same type of rescue training, so it probably won’t be anything specialized.”

“So, in addition to our regular studies, we’ve got to be sure to keep in tip-top shape--_OW!_”

Izuku felt a sharp knock to the back of his head, and looked over his shoulder to see a blonde boy looking down at him. “Sorry,” he intoned with a syrupy, sarcastic tone, “My tray couldn’t get around that huge head of yours.”

“You’re Monoma, from class 1-B, aren’t you? What’s the meaning of this?” Iida demanded.

“What the hell’s your problem, man?” Hitoshi said at nearly the same time.

Shouto seemed to be in his own world, steadily eating his meal, but his brow furrowed slightly.

“I heard you guys ran into the Hero Killer,” Monoma continued in a mock pleasant tone. “I guess sweeping the Sports Festival just wasn’t enough for you, you just have to pull one stunt after another, don’t you, 1-A?”

“That the…?” Hitoshi said, staring at this kid with bewilderment. 

Izuku was baffled, as well. He was blaming _them_? For winning the Sports Festival?

“But now you’re finding out that all that attention isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, aren’t you? You’re finding out it’s dangerous, aren’t you? Aren’t you?” Monoma seemed to be getting a bit more manic with each word. “Pretty scary! I’m just afraid that your antics are going to put the rest of us in danger…_GAH!_”

Hitoshi was on his feet with his fists curled, and Izuku was half way to his, when a girl with spiky red hair and a long ponytail appeared and neatly chopped Monoma on the neck with her hand. 

“Stop that! It’s not funny! Didn’t you hear what happened to Iida?” Monoma crumpled to the ground, and she set her tray on the table so she could hoist him up by the back of his shirt with one hand. “Sorry about him, his heart’s a bit twisted.”

“Thank you for intervening, Kendo-san,” Tenya said politely, firmly tugging Hitoshi back to his seat.

Izuku was still fuming, but sat down with a scowl. Todoroki’s face seemed to have smoothed out, and he kept eating as if a fight hadn’t almost broken out around him. Izuku figured it was all the practice he got at home, not reacting to anything during meals.

“Look, I heard you guys talking about being unsure about the practicals coming up. Between you and me? I heard from an upperclassman that it’s going to be fighting robots again like in the entrance exam,” Kendo told them. “Kind of an unfair advantage, I know…”

“Not unfair at all,” Izuku told her, starting to mutter, ”Preliminary intel gathering is just one aspect of being a hero! Of course it would make sense to ask a second or third year student! Why didn’t I think of that, myself? All this time, I could have…

“Kendoooo,” Monoma groaned from where he was hanging from her fist above the ruined remains of his dropped lunch, “You fool! We finally had an intel advantage over them! This was our chance to show up the detestable Class A!”

“They’re not detestable,” Kendo told him with another chop to the neck, dragging him away. “I'm just being considerate.”

“I guess she’s like their class’s big sister?” Uraraka said in confusion. “I hope the rest of their class doesn’t feel that way about us as that Monoma kid..”

“It doesn’t matter if they do,” Todoroki said evenly, standing with his empty tray in his hands. “We’re not here to impress them.”

He went to return his tray, while the others just stared at him for a moment, then went back to their food. 

The other kids were relieved to hear what Kendo had told them, feeling that they could relax about the practical and get straight to revision. 

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Hitoshi asked Izuku as they headed back to class. 

“There’s no way they’re going to give us robots again,” Izuku said with a nod. “It doesn’t make sense to repeat something we already passed with flying colors.”

“Hey! Deku!” 

Izuku and Hitoshi both stopped when they got through the doorway of the classroom, and Bakugou was standing there looking grouchy.

“What’s up, _Kacchan_?” Hitoshi asked mockingly.

“This doesn’t concern you, asshole,” Bakugou sneered. He looked back at Izuku, “Looks like you’ve gotten control of that quirk. I’m not looking for some hollow victory like at the Sports Festival; when it comes to grades, I’m gonna crush you to dust. I’m gonna open a gulf between us so wide, you’ll drown tryin’ to get across to me.” As if in afterthought, he turned and pointed at Todoroki and added, “You too, Todoroki.” Then he stomped from the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

“Where’s he even going?” Hitoshi asked with a raised eyebrow. “We just got back from lunch.”

Shouto looked as surprised as he was capable of looking and said, “He called me by my actual name. He called me Todoroki.”

Izuku’s eyes widened at that, realizing that Shouto was correct. “I think that this was his way of acknowledging us as a threat to his standing?” 

“He thinks I’m not a threat?” Hitoshi muttered with a scowl. “I could beat him, if I wanted.”

“Then do it,” Todoroki told him seriously. 

Hitoshi smiled at that. “I’m sure going to try.”

The following days were full of cramming. Ashido, Ojiro, Hagakure, Sero, Kaminari and Jiro all met at Yaoyorozu’s house to be tutored by her. Bakugou and Kirishima met at the library, where (Izuku heard) they nearly got kicked out because of Bakugou’s shouting. Hitoshi, Uraraka, Tenya, and to everyone’s surprise, Shouto came to Midoriya’s house to study. The rest of the students had been invited, but had opted to revise alone.

Tenya had brought his brother’s old tests to use as study guides, and made several practice worksheets for each of them in the subjects they were having trouble with. Gran kept them supplied with snacks and tea while they all kept their heads bent over their books. They took a break at lunchtime on Saturday, and Izuku disappeared into the kitchen to make them all finger foods that would be easy to eat around the low coffee table. 

When he came back, it was to find that Akubozu and Gomi had found Todoroki’s right side, and were taking advantage of the natural cool of his body. Akubozu was curled up on Shouto’s lap, while Gomi was perched on his right shoulder; Izuku could hear the purring from where he stood. He slipped his phone out of his pocket and took a picture of the bemused expression on Shouto’s face. It seemed that he’d never really had a cat in his lap before, because he didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. Finally, he tentatively stroked the fur on Akubozu’s head, inadvertently starting the cat’s internal motor, and adding even more purring to the noise of the room. 

Uraraka was giggling at the sight, and Tenya smiled indulgently. Hitoshi looked impressed. 

“Akubozu hates me,” he said, amazed at the purring coming from the fifteen year old cat. “Hisses every time I try to go near him. I’ve only ever seen him willingly touch Gran or Zu.” 

Shouto looked over to Izuku looking oddly pleased. 

“It’s true,” he said with a grin. “You’re special.”

Todoroki’s soft smile had Izuku snapping another burst of pictures, without even hiding what he was doing. He’d text a copy to Shouto later. Uraraka waved and mouthed, ‘_Send me a copy of that!_’ Izuku grinned and nodded.

Tenya came back from washing his hands, and they all ate lunch from the large plates that Izuku set out on the coffee table. Hitoshi kept giving Izuku strange looks after that, until Izuku finally began to become self conscious about it. Once everyone but Hitoshi had left that day, Izuku confronted him.

“Why do you keep looking at me like that?” he asked, almost accusingly.

“How long have _you_ been crushing on Todoroki?” Hitoshi countered, folding his arms across his chest and wearing an inquiring expression.

“What?!” Izuku asked with a strangled break in his voice. 

“Come on, Zu...don’t tell me you didn’t even notice you have a crush!” There was amusement in his voice now, and a glint of unholy humor beginning to alight in his eyes.

“I...I don’t!” Izuku denied. He paused looking to his friend as if for answers. “Do I?”

Hitoshi shrugged innocently, scooping up Gomi from the floor where he’d been sniffing the shoes lined up in the genkan.

“What makes you think I have a crush on him?” Izuku found his heart was thundering in his ears, and he felt on the verge of mild panic. 

“Well,” Hitoshi considered for a moment before listing off: “You’ve called him perfect or good looking multiple times, you have more pictures of him on your phone than you do of anyone else - don’t think I didn’t notice. You blush around him a lot, your hero analysis notebook has about ten pages dedicated to him, when most people get two at best, and oh! You also broke your freaking _bones_ at the Sports Festival to help him… should I go on?”

‘_Well, when he puts it like that…_’ Izuku thought wildly. “But that doesn’t mean I _like_ him, does it?” He thought back to the first day of school, when he’d run into a pole face-first when he saw Todoroki for the first time. He felt his face heat in embarrassment. ‘_Does it?_’

“I also noticed you’re calling him by his first name,” Hitoshi added, looking as though he was waiting for Izuku to have an epiphany.

“Th-that’s because it’s his hero name...and I was staying at his house... and it would have been confusing, then…” Izuku started rambling.

“Look, Zu, maybe I’m wrong, and you just really admire him,” Hitoshi said, not wanting to throw his friend into an actual panic. “I just thought you seemed more...attentive to him than anyone else, lately. You know I wouldn’t judge you either way, right? I don’t care if you like guys or girls or both or neither. You can talk to me about it, anytime you want.”

“Right,” Izuku said weakly. “I just… I guess I never thought about it before. I never had a crush before, so how would I know?”

Hitoshi just shrugged. “You got me there. I totally thought Uraraka was your type; that’s why I made sure you got her number and stuff.”

“What?” Izuku was just getting blindsided with one revelation after another. “I thought _you_ liked her!”

Hitoshi face-palmed. “I like her as a good friend. I was trying to play wingman, in case Iida realized he liked her.”

“You think Iida likes her?” Izuku was floored. _‘What the hell? Have I been living in a cave, somewhere or something? How did I miss all of this?’_

“If he does, I don’t think he realizes it yet. He’s thicker than _you_ are when it comes to this stuff,” Hitoshi smiled as he set Gomi down and followed him to the living room.

Gomi trotted over to Akubozu and curled up on top of him as though the other cat was a cushion. He got a hiss for his trouble before both cats settled into contentment. Hitoshi flopped on the couch and patted the cushion next to him until Izuku came and sat, too.

“So, what do I do?” Izuku asked, “And how did you learn all of this, since you’ve never had a crush or a girlfriend?”

“I have _eyes and ears_, though. I’m pretty good at reading people,” he said, swiping a hand through his fluffy indigo mane. “And you don’t have to _do_ anything. Just keep being his friend, and see how you feel about it.”

Izuku nodded, already muttering about looking up articles about how to tell if you liked someone and the likelihood of obtaining teen magazines that might have advice on the subject.

“Calm down, there, Romeo. Even if you _do_ decide you like him, that guy is seriously emotionally stunted. You’ve got plenty of time to worry about how you feel and whether you want to act on it; he’s just barely starting to interact with the class and trying to make friends.”

Oddly enough, that put Izuku at ease. Hitoshi was right about Todoroki not knowing much about giving or receiving affection of any kind from anyone except his sister and brother. He needed to learn how to have friends before even thinking about anything deepter. If Izuku had learned anything since meeting Hitoshi and getting his quirk, it was that the best way to have a friend was to _be_ a friend. He’d start with that.

They next day, the group gathered again for one last session before the written test on Monday. Izuku tried not to be distracted by his new awareness of Todoroki, and definitely didn’t think about how nice he looked in casual clothes, or how clearly Shouto adored Gomi and her purring. He also kept stealing glances at Tenya and Uraraka, to see if he noticed anything to indicate what Hitoshi had hinted at, but didn’t notice anything in particular.

Over lunch, which Izuku and Gran made while the others sat in the kitchen and chatted, Izuku learned that Uraraka lived in a tiny apartment by herself, since her parents lived too far away to make a commute possible. 

“I had planned to get a part time job to help pay for my rent and buy my own food, but the school doesn’t allow it, I guess,” she told them, thoroughly enjoying the yakitori.

“Isn’t it difficult to live on your own?” Iida asked her, sounding concerned. “I can’t imagine you would have the time to work on top of all of our studies!”

“It’s kind of boring, actually,” she confided. “There’s not much to do that doesn’t cost money, and I tend to eat the same things every day from the same konbini to keep it cheap. I don’t cook, I’m afraid; I couldn’t even figure out the rice cooker.”

Iida looked like he was about to explode for a moment, and Izuku stared at her with his mouth open, as well. 

“You eat convenience store food _daily_?” Iida gasped, as if Uraraka had just confessed that she stabbed people on the train routinely.

She simply shrugged. “It’s cheap and filling.” When she saw the way they were staring, she blushed and shifted uncomfortably. “It’s not like I never eat anything else! I get a great lunch at school every day, for really cheap!”

“They’re just worried about you, Uraraka,” Hitoshi assured her, when she looked uncertain. “Because Zu has to eat so much protein to keep up his muscle mass and energy, he can’t imagine eating that way. As long as you’re healthy, don’t worry about it. _right, guys_?” He looked at Iida and Izuku pointedly.

“Seems reasonable to me,” Todoroki agreed. “What kind of food does a konbini sell?”

All eyes shifted in his direction to stare at _him_ in disbelief, this time.

“Shouto-kun,” Izuku said slowly. “Have you ever been in a konbini before?”

“I never had reason to,” he answered, enjoying a serving of edamame without noticing that the others were surprised. “My father always said that all they had was trash...but I guess that can’t be true, if Uraraka can get meals there.”

Even Hitoshi was at a loss, this time. “We should go. After lunch, we’re going to a konbini and getting some ice cream.”

Gran nodded in agreement from where he was taking care of the dishes. “It’ll do you all some good to get out and stretch your legs. I’ll treat you all, if you pick up a couple of things for me, while you’re there.”

That was how they all ended up walking down the block to the _Ministop_ for Todoroki’s first excursion to a Konbini. They ended up buying all sorts of snacks that Shouto had never tried, and were stunned with how much pop culture is was simply unfamiliar with because of his strict upbringing. By the time the group had finished studying they were all a little brain-fried. Uraraka was sent home with enough wrapped leftovers to last her a day or two (courtesy of Gran) and an invitation to come over whenever she liked, if she was bored. They all extracted a promise from Shouto to come out with them some time for a movie or hanging out. It was progress.

The next morning was a quiet one as they all bent over their papers and tried to remember everything they had learned. When it was over, Ashido and Kaminari actually wept in relief and hugged Momo in gratitude. Lunch was spent in nervous anticipation of the practical exam ahead of them that afternoon.

Finally, suited up in their hero gear, the class met in front of the school gates to find that there were shuttle buses parked in front, and a line of teachers and pro heroes waiting for them. Izuku glanced at Hitoshi, thinking that their prediction had been right; this test would be different.

“Let’s begin your practical exam,” Eraserhead told them. “It _is_ possible to fail this test, so don’t screw it up, if you want to come to the training camp.”

Izuku heard Jiro and Hagakure muttering about how many pros and teachers were lined up in front of them, and wondering why they were there. He had a bad feeling that they wouldn’t like the answer, when they found out. 

“Knowing you guys, you probably asked around and talked to upperclassmen, so you might think you have some idea about how this’ll go,” their teacher went on.

“Robots!” Ashido said with cheer and excitement.

“Bring ‘em on!” Kaminari said, confidently.

“Not quite!” Nezu called out, as he popped up from the folds of Eraserhead’s capture weapon where he’d apparently been hiding. “That format might have worked in the past, but we’ve revised it!”

Hitoshi seemed to be struggling not to laugh at the sight of their principal rappelling down the side of Aizawa’s body, using the capture weapon as a rope.

“You see,” Nezu explained, “Crime has been on the rise in recent years. With Stain recently on the loose, and one of your own classmates ambushed by a villain during the Sports Festival, we believe it is in the best interest of your education to simulate flesh and blood battles as much as possible to simulate practical experiences you may actually encounter.”

Ashido and Kaminari were looking much less confident and cheerful as he spoke. Izuku’s bad feeling was getting worse, as he deduced why all of the teachers were present. Izuku looked at his classmates to see some of them looked fearful, others intrigued, and Bakugou looked plain eager. 

“As such, you students will be pairing up and fighting against one of these pro heros!” Nezu revealed. Most of them were staff, but one in particular stood out. 

”_The Laundry Hero: Wash!_” Izuku all but squealed under this breath, making Hitoshi smirk. “He’s the number eight hero on the charts!”

“Ten stages have been prepared. Each pair will be driven to a training field and have the parameters of the test explained to you by your opponent, giving you a short time to devise a strategy. I suggest you use it wisely.”

Each hero stepped forward one at a time to call out the names of the students they would be challenging. Ectoplasm swept Tokoyami and Asui away first, then Present Mic took Jiro and Koda. Thirteen called out Uraraka and Aoyama to follow them, next. Nezu took Ahido and Kaminari, who were both visibly startled when he beckoned them. Snipe called Hagakure and Shoji forward, Midnight took Sero and Hitoshi, and Wash shooed Kirishima and Sato onto his bus. Power Loader took Ojiro and Iida away, and Todoroki and Yaoyorozu were herded off by Cementos. That left only two students.

Izuku sighed, resigned at being stuck with Bakugou for another battle exercise. Aizawa grinned (which was scary, in and of itself) and said, “You two will be going up against me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ON A SIDE NOTE: Would you all read (or be interested in reading) little side stories that are just filler that didn’t really have a huge impact on the main story? Mostly stuff told from other character’s point of view? I have this picture in my head of Sero and Kaminari finding out that Todoroki doesn’t know any pop culture references, and trying to teach him Fortnite dances, or maybe things like Todoroki’s first trip to the Kombini and not knowing what things are? I can’t guarantee that I’ll have time to write many, but I keep getting little ideas like this that I don’t know if I should commit to turning them into a real mini chapters or omakes.


	16. Side story - Todoroki's First Konbini Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since so many said they'd like to read little side stories here and there, here is the first one! It fits in with Chapter 15, but doesn't have to be read as part of the story, if you don't feel like it. It's mostly just me having fun with the characters.
> 
> Shouto's point of view.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It won't let me make this Chapter 15.5, so the Chapters are going to be screwy from here on in. ┻━┻ ヘ╰( •̀ε•́ ╰)

Shouto was… mildly bewildered by his classmates (friends?) enthusiasm about a trip to a corner store. They all overly upset when he’d told them he’d never been to one, but from what his father had said, everything they sold was ‘trash’. He’d never questioned it further. Now, he was following them out of Midoriya’s house (so different from his own) and down the street.

He had experienced a lot of ‘firsts’ in the past few weeks, and he wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it all. He’d never had friends before, and it was a confusing experience to navigate. He wasn’t used to having people _care_ about him without expecting anything from him in return. Sure, Fuyumi and Natsuo cared, but Shouto’s existence made theirs easier, in a strange way… otherwise, would they bother with him? He wasn’t sure. He was grateful they did; he’d barely been allowed to spend time with them outside of meals until All Might had died and left their father with the duties of the number one hero to fill. That had left it up to Fuyumi to take charge of Shouto when the tutor or their father wasn’t there.

He had never expected to care about others in return, either. He hadn’t entered Yuuei with the intention of making friends; they’d simply been measuring sticks to compare his own abilities to so that he could become the best. 

Then...Midoriya. Midoriya had smashed the chip on Shouto’s shoulder (along with several of his own bones) almost effortlessly, and dragged him into a world that wasn’t controlled by his father. Midoriya had refused to give up on Shouto, even when Shouto had tried to give up on his own power. He’d inadvertently shown him how to stop being used by his father and to turn the tables. Now he was learning everything he could about the fire side of his quirk - not so he could fall into his father’s plans, but so he could escape them.

“You still with us, Todoroki?” Uraraka asked brightly, when he seemed to be lost in thought. “It’s only a couple blocks away.”

He managed a small smile and nod, picking up the pace a little. “I’m coming.”

Midoriya seemed to be at the center of a lot of Shouto’s experiences, lately. The Sports Festival, partnering for class activities, being invited to each lunch with his group of friends, being attacked at the mall, interning together, finding the courage to visit his mother, fighting Stain… How did a boy he’d never even heard of before suddenly become such a huge part of his life? Why didn’t he mind?

“There it is!” Izuku said, pointing across the road to a small building with a yellow sign across the front that read _MINISTOP_. They waited on traffic before they crossed and entered the store. Izuku grabbed a hand basket and stopped beside Shouto, who was looking around with a furrowed brow. 

“There’s a lot of stuff in here. I had no idea.” he said, taking in the aisles of merchandise, freezers, refrigerated section and even a counter for ordering hot food.

“Take your time,” Tenya told him kindly. “I have fond memories of Tensei bringing me with him on errands and buying me sweets from the Konbini near our home.”

Shinsou tossed a magazine he’d picked up into Izuku’s basket with a smirk, then suggested, “Just start at the end of the last aisle and walk up and down until you’ve seen everything.”

Shouto hadn’t known that Izuku liked to read teen magazines...or maybe it was for Shinsou? At any rate. Shouto nodded and took the suggestion. Tenya and Uraraka took the list Gran had made to find what he needed and left Izuku and Shinsou to show Todotroki around the store. 

“Those are...instant noodles? I’ve seen Natsuo sneak some into the house before. He seems to like them,” Shouto said, looking at the long row of neatly stacked cups on the shelves. “I had no idea there were so many varieties.”

Shinsou grabbed a couple of different flavors and tossed them into the hand basket.

“They have fresh food. Sandwiches, buns, salads...even sushi!” Izuku pointed out. He gestured to a display and said, “These are my favorite onigiri.”

Shouto took his time looking everything over, seemingly impressed by the variety. The snack aisle had items more familiar to him. He recognized a brand of senbei that Fuyumi kept around and served with tea, and there were Jagabee potatoes that Natsuo liked to munch on when their father wasn’t around. He examined the different flavors and marveled that there were just so many. He was aware that Izuku and Shinsou were watching him and gauging his reactions. 

“So many sweets,” he observed. “I’ve heard of these.”

“Pocky is really popular,” Izuku agreed. “Do you like sweets, Shouto-kun?”

“I haven’t had them very often, but I have enjoyed them. Usually they’re something from a fancy cake shop, or fruit milk. Oh! And Fuyumi gave me a KitKat once that was matcha flavor, and it was really nice.” His father didn’t care for sweets, but sometimes brought them home when he was gifted them at work.

Shinsou grabbed three different types of Pocky from the display and tossed them in the basket. Shouto wasn’t sure what was going on, but Izuku seemed to know, and never protested. Uraraka and Tenya returned with the items that Gran had asked for, and continued the tour with them. Soon they were also adding different snacks to the basket, as well. 

The whole place was intriguing. You could buy any meal of the day quickly and easily. There was a variety of foods he’d never even imagined before, and even personal care items, including underpants, toothbrushes and hair care products. Sake, dairy products, stationary items...even automotive accessories like air fresheners and windshield wiper fluid. He had to wonder why his father would consider all of this trash. Certainly there were some unwholesome or unhealthy things, but it was easy now to imagine Uraraka being able to eat well from a place like this.

Finally, the basket was getting quite full. Izuku told them to go and order their ice cream at the counter while he paid for the items. 

There were many different varieties to choose from. Parfaits, smoothies, plain vanilla milk ice cream… it was overwhelming. Ice cream was not a common treat in the Todoroki home. He finally went with the plain vanilla in a cone, simply because the sign said it had won an award for something. Tenya got a strawberry parfait, Hitoshi got a mango parfait, and Uraraka ordered something called halo halo. Izuku arrived just in time, and ordered a second halo halo, but with a different flavor syrup than Uraraka’s.

The ice cream was brought out to the table they chose and everyone dug in with enthusiasm. Shouto put the first spoonful in his mouth and closed his eyes, savoring the sweet creamy flavor. _This_ is what his father considered trash? Really? He was clearly mistaken. He heard a click, and looked over to see Shinsou taking his picture.

“To commemorate your first Konbini trip!” he said with a grin. 

“Wait!” Uraraka pulled an item from her bag and passed it to Shinsou. “This was a free gift at a store I went to, but I don’t have the right kind of phone for it.”

“A selfie stick!” Izuku said with a grin. “Perfect! We can all be in a picture together!”

Shouto wasn’t sure what they were talking about until he observed Shinsou attach his phone to the item and pull out the telescopic handle, making his phone stand out in front of him about a meter. Everyone gathered around Shouto and Shinsou said, “Smile, everyone!” 

Shouto wasn’t sure he managed a real smile, but he _did_ feel happy. This group of classmates had come here and done this for him, simply because he’d never been able to before. It was hard to wrap his head around. His phone pinged a moment later, and he opened it to find the picture had been sent to him. Similar sounds told him that the others had received it too. 

“I’ve found my new wallpaper!” Izuku said with that sunshine smile that made Shouto feel as though he might go blind from it. 

Something fluttered in Shouto’s chest that wasn’t altogether comfortable, but seeing his friends smiling back at him from his phone gave him a warm feeling inside. 

They finished their ice cream and walked back to Midoriya’s house, two large shopping bags full of items collected at the store. 

“What’s all this stuff?” Gran asked, looking in the bags. 

“Oh, most of that is for Shouto,” Izuku said cheerfully.

“It’s...what?” Shouto felt lost again.

“We got you some of the things you seemed interested in, so you could try them!” Izuku explained with a happy smile.

The others were nodding along, so he accepted the bag full of pocky and instant ramen and other treats awkwardly. 

Luckily, no one was home when he got back from studying. Shouto took his things to his room, and carefully laid out the treats his friends had picked for him, examining each one before stashing them in a desk drawer. He took a single packet of strawberry pocky and opened it carefully. Then he opened his phone and looked at the picture of himself with his friends.

Today had been...enlightening in many ways. He took a bite of the Pocky. Everything about today had been...sweet.


	17. Win or Lose, there’s a long way to go!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final exams go about as well as you'd expect, then it's shopping trip with the whole class! What could go wrong?

_’Oh, crap!’_ was Izuku’s first thought. His teacher didn’t look very scary at first glance; scruffy and tired and slow. However, Izuku had watched the videos of the Sports Festival where he had clawed his way to the podium and won his spot in the hero course. He could only imagine how much the man had improved his craft in the years since then.

“Pfft,” Bakugou made a derisive sound. “This’ll be easy. The guy’s practically quirkless, if he can’t see you.”

_’We’re doomed.’_ Izuku thought with a feeling of dread as he followed his teacher and his tormentor onto the bus. _’Is this karma? Did I wrong someone, without knowing it? Did I hurt someone in a past life?’_

“Quit muttering, jackass,” Bakugou told him, taking a seat near the back of the bus.

Aizawa started the engine and they pulled onto the road as Midoriya took a seat near Bakugou.

“There’s a whole damn bus, Deku. What the fuck do you need to sit near me, for?” Bakugou growled.

“So we can try to come up with a strategy?” Izuku said as if it wasn’t obvious. “I don’t feel like having my ass handed to me and failing this exam.”

“You use any strategy you want,” his so-called partner told him. “I don’t need _you_ to win this shit. I can take him out on my own.”

“Your hubris never ceases to amaze me,” Izuku sighed. “Eraserhead is a _pro_. You think he hasn’t taken out villains stronger than us, before? Think again!”

“Fuck. Off. Deku.” Bakugou growled, truly starting to sound agitated. 

“Look, if you think you’re going to take him down alone, you’re delusional, unless your explosions can suddenly be used long range? We need a plan!”

“My _plan_ is to kick his ass, and yours, too, if you get in my way!” Bakugou didn’t even bother trying to keep his voice down.

Izuku glanced to the front of the bus and saw Aizawa staring back at him in the rear view mirror, but his expression gave no clues as to what he should do next. Izuku sat a few seats forward in the middle of the bus for the rest of the ride, which was only about five minutes, but seemed like an hour. 

They got off the bus, and Aizawa told them, “This stage represents a residential area. I’m the villain in this scenario. You have thirty minutes to achieve one of two objectives: Get these handcuffs on me, or one of you has to get through the escape gate. This is meant to simulate an actual battle scenario, so you’d do well to treat me like an actual villain.”

“That’s it?” Bakugou asked flippantly.

“Because you’re at a disadvantage against a pro, I’ll be wearing these,” Eraserhead told them, holding up a large cuff. “These are specially compressed weights that will increase my body weight by half.” He snapped them into place on his wrists, but didn’t seem like the extra weight was affecting him at all. “If you fight me and win, that’s great, but if you find yourself being overwhelmed, then escaping could be your best option. Midoriya, you and those other two should know that better than most.”

Midoriya remembered the fight with Stain, and how escape would have been impossible, even though they’d tried.

“So, it’s either fight to win, or run to win,” Izuku confirmed, feeling determined. 

“Correct. You have a five minute head start. Go!”

The boys didn’t hesitate, and ran forward, Bakugou sprinting down the block and around a corner. Deku followed. 

“Our best bet is going to be trying to escape,” Deku said, trying one last time to get his partner to cooperate with him.

“I said stay out of my way!” Bakugou told him, shoving him roughly from the nook he’d hidden in. “I ain’t running from _shit_. I’m in this to _win_. I don’t care what you do.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Izuku hissed, trying to make him see reason. “We’re going to have to work together to do this! We need a distraction, to keep him from....”

“Here’s a distraction for you,” Bakugou growled angrily. He threw a punch at Deku, with a bit of explosion tacked on.

Izuku hadn’t really expected his partner to cooperate with him, but he certainly hadn’t believed he’d attack him. He dodged a little too late, and got clipped on the cheek, with a scorch mark to go along with it that stung in a way that only burns can. It was only because his head turned under the impact of the punch that Izuku caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and dropped to the ground in a roll. He avoided being snagged by Aizawa’s capture weapon by a breath width. 

Accepting that Bakugou was determined to try to fight their teacher, Izuku took the opportunity to put as much space between both of them as he could. While Eraserhead was occupied dealing with Bakugou, he moved further into the neighborhood, trying to keep oriented. He knew his time was limited in more ways than one; he had to use One for All to get as far toward the escape gate as possible while he was still able to use it. As soon as their teacher finished dealing with Bakugou, he’d turn his attention to pursuing Deku and taking him down. 

Izuku turned on random side streets and into allies at top speed, knowing it wasn’t a good sign that he couldn’t hear Bakugou’s mouth or explosions within moments of fleeing the scene. If his so-called partner had been subdued that quickly, Deku had a lot less time than he’d hoped.

His prediction proved correct as his speed suddenly cut down to what he could do without his quirk, nearly making him stumble. One For All was out of his reach for the moment, a clear indication that he’d been spotted. As quickly as he could, he darted under the cover of a porch and felt the hum of power return to his limbs. He didn’t dare to break cover without a plan, and quickly surveyed the area he was trapped in. How much time had elapsed since he’d left Bakugou behind? Five minutes, maybe? The escape gate wasn’t even in sight, and he had to find it as soon as possible.

He considered his options. He knew the general direction he needed to go in to wind back around to the gate, and if (and that was a BIG _if_) he wanted to check on Bakugou before escaping, he’d have to go back the way he’d come. If he had to use stealth, and would be prone to being quirkless whenever Eraserhead caught sight of him, it was going to take some time. Time he might not have. Still… he was a hero in this scenario, and abandoning your partner (even if he was a dick) was not really good form. 

Decision made, Deku charged up as much One For All as his frame could hold, and sprinted, hoping to get enough momentum before his quirk was erased again. It wasn’t much. Before he’d gotten twenty meters down the street, he was on his own power and looking for cover again. He darted down a side street, and used the brief respite to force a house’s window open and climb inside. He closed the window behind him, and darted through the empty residence. There was no furniture, appliances or floor coverings; this was a stage, and the house just a prop.

Once he got to the other side of the house he waited, crouched low below an upstairs window. A few short moments later, he spotted Eraserhead leaping from the roof of the house where Izuku was hiding, to the roof of the house next door. Deku’s heart rate intensified as he quickly ducked out of sight. He waited a few more moments before risking a look out the window again. Aizawa was still perched on the neighboring roof, but faced the other way. His teacher had the advantage of higher ground and a superior view of his surroundings. Izuku needed a way to overcome that. 

He mentally calculated how much stronger he thought Aizawa might be than him without his quirk, and his chances of surprising his teacher and knocking him off the roof. There was a real possibility that if he tried it, he’d be taken down, too, and that could lead to a one-on-one, hand-to-hand fight. Could he manage to cuff Eraserhead or escape without his quirk? There was a _slight_ chance.

There was one sure way to find out. 

Moving as slowly as he dared, Deku moved back away from the window to give himself room to get a running start. Pushing himself as hard as he could, he launched himself forward in a green blur. He burst through the window, glass shattering as he rocketed through, using the window ledge for leverage to get him up to the next roof. He was already airborne and upon his teacher before Eraserhead was able to fully turn and fix his stare on Deku. They collided and went tumbling sideways off the roof, Deku’s arms holding Aizawa’s from behind, keeping him from using his capture weapon. It was a strange sensation to fall this way, both of them knowing how to instinctively twist in the air, so their impact would be lessened. Izuku let go at the last moment and did his best to land without injury. He might have made it, too, if Aizawa hadn’t landed almost effortlessly and instantly sent Deku flying with a roundhouse kick to the side. Still, both were skilled and experienced fighters, so Izuku was able to recover quickly, jumping up from the gravelly side yard, hands fisted and body in a fighting stance.

“You really think you stand a chance against me in a one-on-one? You’ve got guts, kid,” Aizawa mocked, red eyes glowing behind the slotted mask and hair standing on end as he gripped his capture weapon on both hands.

“I won’t know unless I try,” Deku returned, mentally willing the other man to blink. 

He gritted his teeth and darted forward in a feint, tossing out one of his fists and releasing the handful of little white pellets he was holding with a pretend punch, even as Aizawa moved to block to protect his face. They weren’t much more than a kid’s toy, available at any corner store; exploding caps that gave a satisfying little _bang_ when they hit the ground. A dozen of them impacting the ground at once wasn’t very loud at all, but seeing his opponent toss something behind you and then hearing tiny little explosions was enough to make Eraserhead break eye contact for a split second as he tracked the tiny projectiles sailing past and landing. Izuku took full advantage of that, and used the split second to smack the goggles off of Aizawa’s face and toss the gravel he’d picked up in his other fist at the man’s eyes. He didn’t wait to see if his feeble plan had borne fruit, he just _ran_. He felt a surge of power and speed as Eraserhead broke eye contact.

Taking a page from his teacher’s book, Izuku leapt to the rooftop of the nearest building after he managed to get out of Aizawa’s line of sight. He must have managed to disable Eraserhead for longer than he’d anticipated, because he was able to get a good distance away, nearly back to where he’d last seen Bakugou, before he felt his quirk fizzle out again. This time, he was prepared, and as soon as he felt his momentum decrease, he dropped off the roof he was on and used the small time he had to dive into another house through the window, again. He started traveling that way, shattering windows and moving through houses and yards until he found Bakugou, pretty much right where he’d left him. 

“What the fuck? How are you not tied up somewhere?” Bakugou demanded from where he was wrapped in some of Eraserhead’s capture weapon and tied to dangle from the top of a light pole. (_’How long is that thing, anyway? Did he have to cut it?’_) There were deadly sharp caltrops scattered in a wide area under him. Even if he blasted his way out of confinement, he’d be lucky not to fall and impale himself on multiple hooked spikes. “You’re covered in blood.”

“Nice to see you, too,” Izuku muttered with a scowl. “Aizawa’s on my tail.”

Izuku took a running leap and spun once on the arm of the lamp post before landing above Bakugou. Duku used his quirk to tear the carbon fiber piece of strap binding him his partner, then used the length of it to swing Bakugou back and forth until he had enough impetus to clear the caltrops. He let him fly, still bound, but out of range of the danger. From there, Izuku jumped from his perch to land near Bakugou and said, “We need to make it to the gate.” A moment later, he muttered, “Shit. He’s here. I’ll draw him off while you free yourself.”

Izuku took off running at the fastest speed he could without One For All, satisfied that Bakugou’s quirk was still available to him. It was a straight shot to the gate, now, and the time had to be getting close to being over. He could see the arch over the gate with a picture of Nezu on it, as he sprinted for all he was worth. He could _feel_ Aizawa closing in on him, and it was only a mild surprise when he felt his feet get wrapped in the capture weapon. 

He went down hard, hitting his chin on the ground and feeling his teeth slam together, making him bite the tip of his tongue in the process and taste the coppery blood filling his mouth. He knew it was probably futile, but he reached down to try to tear the cloth away to escape. Eraserhead approached, holding the ends of his weapon taut, seeming slightly out of breath. He opened his mouth to speak, when suddenly, he was tackled from behind. Bakugou took him down and set off a blast in front of Eraserhead’s face. He landed just long enough to grab the back of Izuku’s costume and haul him along. They made it through the gate, the capture weapon trailing from Izuku’s ankles, with six minutes and three seconds to spare. 

Aizawa walked out of the stage while putting eye drops in his redder than usual eyes, his face slightly scorched. “Congratulations, you passed.” 

Bakugou snorted angrily. “You mean _he_ passed. I didn’t get to do shit.”

Izuku was busy fishing a handkerchief out of one of his belt pouches and putting pressure on his bleeding tongue, trying to catch his breath in the process. He didn’t bother to answer, for a number of reasons.

“You came through in the end. You could have left him behind and gotten through the gate on your own, but you stopped to take him with you,” Aizawa pointed out.

Izuku was pretty sure that Aizawa had let them go. The amount of time he’d spent freeing Bakugou from the light pole would have been plenty of time for their teacher to catch up with him over the rooftops. Maybe he hadn't wanted to risk them both falling onto the caltrops? Whatever the reason, Deku wasn’t going to complain; he was just glad they’d passed. He was also pretty sure that he was either going to need to see Recovery Girl, or get stitches in several places.

“You’re a mess,” Aizawa told him, when he took a good look at Midoriya’s wounds. “Have Bakugou patch you up a bit on the ride back; I don’t need you bleeding out on the bus.”

Izuku rolled his eyes. He wasn’t bleeding _that_ much, just his face and head, mostly. His costume had done its job, and kept all the shattered glass and broken window frames from puncturing his skin, for the most part. His gloves had taken some damage, but they were still in decent shape, as well. All in all, the worst of it was probably the hit he’d taken from Bakugou at the beginning. It had knocked off his jaw guard and mask, leaving his head vulnerable throughout the exam, which was how he’d gotten the other cuts and wounds. It was his own fault that he hadn’t pulled his mask back on.

“Sit over here, nerd,” Bakugou said gruffly, holding a white metal case with a big red cross on the front.

“You don’t have to do anything,” Deku told him, not entirely trusting him.

“Sit down and shut the fuck up,” Bakugou ordered. “You’ve got a fucking piece of glass sticking out of the back of your head.”

Izuku automatically went to reach for the back of his head to check for himself, when Bakugou smacked his hand out of the away. 

“Just hold still, stupid. You’re gonna break the glass off under the skin.” He opened the first aid kit and pulled out a pair of tweezers and a piece of gauze. None too gently, he pulled a shard of glass (and a few green hairs) out of Deku’s head, then pressed the gauze over the cut, applying firm pressure. He showed Izuku the shard, which was about six centimeters long, with one end coated in blood. 

“I didn’t even know it was there,” Izuku mused. He put his hand back and took over holding the gauze in place, while Bakugou wet a cloth and used it to roughly wipe away some of the blood on his partner’s face. A short time later, they pulled up near a tent that was set up as Recovery Girl’s temporary medical office, specifically for this test.

The old woman looked Izuku over, removing a few splinters of glass or wood from his cuts, and then gave him a kiss on the forehead, nodding in apparent satisfaction. “Your mouth is the worst of it, dear. Your face might have a couple of faint scars that will probably heal completely over time, but you might need to see the dentist to make sure you didn’t break any teeth. No broken bones this time! You did well!”

“Izuku made it through without breaking bones?” Uraraka’s head popped into the tent before she decided she wouldn’t be intruding by coming in, and stepped inside. 

“How many have you broken at this point, mon ami?” Aoyama asked,stepping in behind her. 

They both looked perfectly fine, physically, so Izuku assumed they were looking for other classmates. He shrugged, running his tongue around his mouth to find no hint of pain . “I haven’t been keeping count.”

“Twenty seven breaks this school year, if you count the hairline fractures,” Recovery Girl said darkly, “Though only sixteen bones, mostly in his hands and feet.”

“Only? The fuck?” Bakugou muttered to himself. “Fuckin’ crazy-ass…” he left the tent as though Deku’s tendency to break his bones might be contagious.

Kirishima and Sato came into the tent, soaking wet and smelling strongly of detergent, after their test with the pro-hero, Wash. Both of them had red, watery eyes. 

“I don’t know what kind of soap that was, but it burns!” Sato was grumbling, wiping tears away.

The boys were ushered in by recovery girl, and the rest of them were shooed out. Outside of the tent, most of their other classmates had returned, some looking jubilant, some looking defeated. Aizawa got a call that had him leaving in a bus, only to return a short time later with Jiro, Koda and Present Mic. Jiro had blood running down the sides of her face from her ears, and Present Mic looked like he was having a mental breakdown of some kind. Aizawa supported Mic and half carried him into Recovery Girl’s tent while Mic shook violently, muttering, “_Everywhere,_ Sho! In places that bugs should never be! I can still feel them on me!”

All eyes turned to Koda, who gave them a shy smile and a thumbs up.

They were given the evening to think on their successes and mistakes, and in homeroom the next morning, the students who had failed were dejected and resigned. In the End, Wash defeated Kirishima and Sato, Nezu outsmarted Ashido and Kaminari, and Sero failed, even though Hitoshi cleared the test as his partner, cuffing Midnight (who couldn’t put him to sleep because his mask had a filter on it). Bakugou just barely passed, thanks to his last minute cooperation to save Izuku at the escape gate. Everyone else passed: some with flying colors, and others with a bit of added psychological trauma.

Ashido was weepy, making the others promise to take pictures and tell her all about it when they got back from training camp.

“Don’t give up yet,” Izuku placated. “There could still be some twist in this!” 

If he had learned anything in the past couple of years, it was that life was always ready to hand you the unexpected.

“Shut up!” Kaminari groused petulantly. “Mr. I-scored-fourth-on-the-written-test-AND-beat-Aizawa-sensei! You’re going to be going camping in the woods and having extra training, while the rest of who failed the practical have to rot in summer school hell! The only twist in this is the one I’d like to give your neck for trying to give us false hope!”

Hitoshi gave Kaminari a smack on the back of the head, but yanked his hand back with he got a snapping shock off it. “Calm down. You won’t know anything until we find out how they’re scoring the test. Think about the entrance exam, and the surprise with the rescue points.”

No one had time to consider his words before the there was a loud clatter that had heads turning.

“That’s the bell. Take your seats.” Aizawa said, slamming the door open upon his arrival.

Everyone scrambled to be seated, but they quieted down and looked to their teacher to hear what he had to say about their performance in the exams.

“Sadly,” he said as he took his place at the lectern, “There were some failures among you.”

Five heads hung sadly; others looked fearful. ”_I knew it_” Kaminari whimpered.

“As such,” Aizawa announced, “You’re ALL going to training camp!”

“**A TWIST!**” half the class exclaimed in unison.

“It was a rational deception,” Aizawa told them proudly, with a smile that made them all stop and stare. “Of _course_ the students who failed are going; it’s _training_; they’re the ones who need it the most. You all passed the written exam, so be sure to thank those who helped you study.”

A lot of heads turned to Yaoyorozu, and she smiled happily at the recognition. 

“Kirishima, Kaminari, Ashiro, Sato and Sero all failed the practical,” Aizawa announced.

“I knew it,” Sero groaned, burying his face in his hands. “Just because Hitoshi carried me out with him, didn’t mean I passed.”

“So when you said the teachers were going to try to crush us…” Ojiro said slowly.

“That was to push you to do your best. As the villains in this test, the teachers each came up with assignments to push each of you to strategize and work together to accomplish a goal. If we hadn’t none of you would have stood a chance,” Aizawa explained.

“So we get to go? For reals?” Ashido asked in disbelief.

“Of course,” Aizawa confirmed. “But know this: a failure is still a failure. The five of you will still be given supplementary lessons, on top of your training. To be honest, you’ll probably end up wishing you’d been left behind for summer school.”

“Well...In any case,” Ojiro said with an uncertain expression. “It’s nice that we all get to go, at least.”

After classes, they lingered to get a look at their packing list.

“Woah! This list is huge!” Izuku said, wondering if they’d really need it all. 

“Well, it is an entire week of training camp. It does make sense,” Tenya said, looking over his list, as well.

“I don’t even have a bathing suit,” Kaminari said. “I’m going to need a ton of stuff.”

“Well, tomorrow’s a day off, and tests are over,” Hagakure said with enthusiasm. “Why don’t we all meet and go shopping together as a class?”

“That’s a great idea!” Kaminari agreed. “Who else is in?”

“I’ll go!” Kirishima said without hesitation. “You’re going, too, Bakugou!”

“Like hell I am!” Bakugou shot back, looking annoyed. 

The two boys walked off, Kirishima arguing with Bakugou and trying to convince him that it would be fun. Ojiro, Asui, Uraraka, Hitoshi and Shouji all also agreed to go, and Izuku and Tenya promised to set up the event in a group chat with details for everyone one for where and when to meet.

“Are you going to come, too, Shouto?” Izuku asked, feeling excited for the outing.

“I’ve been visiting my mother on my days off,” he said quietly. “But...depending on the time…”

“We can arrange for a time that works for you,” Tenya told him agreeably as they walked down the corridor toward their shoe lockers. “No one else has voiced an opinion on when they ‘d like to go.”

“If we can make it after lunchtime,” Shouto said after a moment’s thought. 

“That sounds good,” Tenya said. “I will send out a group message to meet at half past one. Where shall we go?”

“There’s a new super-center mall that just opened up recently,” Hitoshi said. “It’s supposed to have the most shops of any place else in the prefecture, with lots of trendy stores.”

“Oh yeah,” Izuku nodded, remembering reading about it online. “The Kiyashi Ward Shopping Mall.”

“That’s the one!” Hitoshi said.

“Sounds good. I’ll check the train and bus routes and schedules and find a map and directory to find the best place to meet up,” Iida said, already making notes on his phone.

It took a small amount of planning, but soon they had nearly everyone in class committed to meeting up the next day to shop. 

6:29 PM _’I even sent a message to Aizawa sensei to tell him our plans, so he’ll know what we’re doing.’_ Iida said in a message to Izuku that evening. 

6:30 pm _’Did he reply?’_

6:30 PM _’Yes. All he said was, “Be responsible.” So we should keep an eye out for the others getting too rowdy.’_

Izuku laughed at his teacher’s reply, and when Tenya didn’t seem inclined to chat more, he simply replied with a thumbs up and set down his phone to go back to making lists of what he would need to buy to complete his packing. Shopping with the whole class sounded chaotic and exhausting, but fun. He wanted to be as organized as possible, especially if Tenya was treating this like a school outing. 

He met up with Hitoshi the next morning for their usual run, and spent the morning training with Gran, who had broken out his hero gear to spar with Izuku at the beach, where they were less likely to break anything. Gran was at a slight disadvantage without many walls to ricochet off of, but still managed to amaze izuku with his speed and agility. By the end of their match, Izuku had only managed to get two hits on Gran, and just minor ones, at that. Still, a year ago, he wouldn’t have been able to manage even one, so it was progress.

“Remember kid, the times you got a hit on me were the ones where you did something I didn’t expect. Always keep them guessing.”

When the time came to meet everyone at the mall, Hitoshi and Izuku caught the train together and found the meeting spot in plenty of time. Of course, Tenya was already there, ever the reliable class rep, a tall presence that was easy to spot in a crowd. It didn’t take long before most of the class had arrived, excited and loud. Even Bakugou showed up, looking grumpy being towed along by Kirishima. Shouto was the last to arrive, looking around him with interest.

“Hey!” someone from the very crowded central court called out, “Aren’t you all first years from Yuuei? Great job at the Sports Festival!”

“Wow! People still remember that?” Uraraka said with surprise, even while she waved in acknowledgement.

The mall was an open-air type, with wide walkways and a huge courtyard. The stores on all of the levels could be seen from the center of the courtyard, and there was a huge variety to choose from. There was a large chain store near their meeting spot, with a man dressed as a popular video game character standing out front, handing out coupons to shoppers. He called out to Shouji and Tenya, “Hey! You with the six arms! Even you with those huge calves! You’ll find everything you need right here!”

Izuku was amazed at the variety of stores on the enormous, three-level shopping gallery, and immediately started his muttering. “_Stores in this economy have to do more than just cater do differing body and quirk types...there are other factors to consider, such as age, special interests, popular opinion...no wonder this place draws so many different..._

“Midoriya, stop. You’re scaring the children,” Tokoyami told him when he showed no signs of slowing down his analysis. 

Histoshi laughed outright at that, and at Izuku’s pink cheeks when he realized what he’d been doing. 

Shouto, who was still looking around him with a critical eye, only shrugged. “He’s right, though. It’s impressive.”

This only made Izuku blush more, though he hoped Hitoshi was the only one who noticed.

“Alright,” Tenya said in an authoritative voice. “There are many stores here that might have the things on your lists. You should all find someone who needs items similar to what you need, and pair up. We can meet back here in an hour to see what we still need.

“I need insect repellent, sunscreen and some allergy medicine,” Hitoshi said.

“I need some insect repellent, too,” Uraraka said immediately.

“I need a big duffel bag,” Jiro said.

Yaoyorozu offered to accompany her, and Hagakure and Ojiro decided to tag along. It didn’t take long before everyone had found a direction to wander off to, except Izuku and Shouto.

“I think I need a sporting goods store,” Izuku told him. “I want to get some wrist and ankle weights. Seeing the ones that the teachers wore for the final exams gave me the idea. It would be a good way to weight train at the same time as jogging or other activities.”

Shouto nodded. “I think I’ll need some hiking boots, though I’ll need ones that can be fire resistant. I don’t know if they make something like that without a special order.”

They consulted a nearby directory and found a large sporting goods place on the third level that looked promising. 

“Looks like there’s a bathroom nearby,” Shouto said. “I need to stop there, first.”

“I’ll wait here,” Izuku told him, indicating a bench a couple of meters away.

Shouto disappeared into the crowd, and Izuku was just turning to go to the bench when someone called out to him. 

“Oooh! Cool! You’re from Yuuei! Can I get an autograph?”

“Uh…” Izuku couldn’t see the face of the person approaching him, because their head was down, and covered by a hoodie. 

“You’re the one who got wrecked at the Sports Festival,” they said in an amazed tone, “_Then_ you ran into the Hero Killer, too! _And_ got snatched by one of the nomu, and got saved by the Hero Killer!”

“You sure know a lot about me,” izuku said uneasily, getting a prickly feeling on the back of his neck. “What is a nomu, anyway?”

Izuku was surprised when the man walked right up to him and threw an arm around his shoulders. His instincts told him to move away, but when he tried to politely extricate himself the arm tightened, and a hand closed firmly around his throat. “I can’t help but think that something _special_ has helped you come this far.”

Izuku froze at those words, and really honed in on what the man was saying.What exactly did that mean? 

“My Sensei took notice of you at the Sports Festival and did a little digging. How interesting that no one seems to know that_ you_ were the one that was there when All Might died. I’m so jealous! I wish I could have seen it! Then, almost as soon as he kicked the bucket, a previously quirkless boy suddenly developed a quirk so very much like All Might’s! What an amazing coincidence! Sensei is _very_ interested to meet you.”

Izuku couldn’t have been more stunned if the man had hit him over the head with a sledgehammer. They knew his secret! How? Who was sensei? Who was this man holding him? His whole body felt as though Kaminari had let loose a million volts on it.

A voice next to his ear said, “Easy, now. You and I are going to have a chat, that’s all. Calm down and breathe normally; no making a scene or trying anything funny. The second all five of my fingers touch your neck, your throat would start crumbling starting from the skin inward. You’d be no more than a pile of dust in under a minute.”

“In a crowd like this? Heroes would show up, and you’d be caught.” Izuku reminded him, hoping to dissuade him. He mentally counted the four fingers already pressing into his skin. How did this man know about all of that, when it had been so carefully buried? How did he find out? It should be impossible!

“No doubt they would,” the man said, sounding unconcerned. “But imagine it: all of these happy people! Families, friends, people without a care in the world, safe in the knowledge that heroes are out there protecting them from harm. They can’t even imagine the terror that I could unleash here. Look at the sickening smiles; they never suspect that danger is so close.That’s why I hate pretty much everything and everyone. How many of them do you think I could utterly destroy before anyone could stop me? Twenty? Thirty? I could take out at least thirty single handedly.”

Izuku’s blood ran cold at the thought. He glanced around the crowded space and could see that no one was paying any attention to a villain in their midst, holding a teenager by the throat. Why would they? It was a beautiful day, with lots to see and do, and there shouldn’t be any danger at all; why should they suspect otherwise? Children and the elderly and every age in between were blissfully ignorant of the potential threat as they enjoyed their day out. 

“Who are you, anyway?” Izuku asked, trying to distract the man from thinking of hurting others. Surely Shouto would be back soon and notice something was wrong.

“There’s the million yen question,” the man replied, seeming delighted to be asked. “You see, everyone in Japan _should_ know my name. Everyone should be talking about Shigaraki Tomura with fear, but _Stain_ and _you_ stole my glory! I set those nomu on the city, and caused mass panic and chaos, and what do people decide to talk about? The _Hero Killer_!” The last two words were spat out with intense venom. 

“Why is that, Midoriya Izuku? Why, when both Stain and I have the same goals; destroying the things we hate, why do they only take notice of _him_?”

Shigaraki seemed to expect an answer, and Izuku was at a loss for what to say. From what he could figure, nomu were the creatures with the exposed brains that were loose the night he’d fought Stain. He’d even been snatched by one. It was odd, now that he thought of it, that no one was really talking about them. They’d sort of gotten lost in the excitement of the Hero Killer being taken down.

“You’re with the League of Villains!” Izuku suddenly realized, remembering Stain’s claim that he was not responsible for the attack on Hosu, and that a “League of Villains” was interested in the hero in training.

“You _have_ heard of us! Fantastic!” Shigaraki answered. “That will make his so much easier! So, here’s what’s going to happen.You’re going to come with me, nice and slow, and we’re going to go meet Sensei.”

“I don’t think so,” Shouto said from behind them.

How long had he been standing there? How much had he heard? Did he hear about being there when All Might died? Izuku’s heart rate shot even higher at the sound of his friend’s voice.

“Ah,” Shigaraki said, sounding interested instead of upset. “I know someone who’s interested in _you_ as well, son of Endeavor. Why don’t you come along with us?”

_’Nononononononno…’_ Izuku thought desperately. ‘_I have to get away from this guy, NOW.’_

“Not happening,” Shouto said flatly. “The police and heroes are on their way - I just messaged them. Let him go.”

“I hate to throw your words back at you,” Shigaraki said silkily, “but, not happening. One of my men has cut off all cell towers and landline communication in and out of here for a kilometer radius.In fact, I have pawns all over this mall, waiting for my signal. No one is coming to help you. If you won’t cooperate, well...we have ways to persuade you.”

At that moment, a dark swirling portal formed in the middle of the courtyard, growing wider and alarming shoppers nearby. A moment later, people began to step out of the dark mass and into the mall, looking menacing. Izuku stayed frozen as he watched at least six people come through the portal from who-knew-where.

Thinking quickly, Shouto raised his left hand and shot fire at the nearest overhead sprinkler, activating the fire alarm. Klaxons began blaring and emergency lights flashing as people began swarming toward the exits. Localized sprinklers began to spray water in the section around them.. “Midoriya,” he said over the noise. “We’re not cleared to use our quirks to fight villains, but self-defense is another matter.”

Izuku could only assume that Shouto didn’t know how Shigaraki’s quirk worked, but he was not willing to move and risk having his throat destroyed. Therefore, it was sheer luck that Shigaraki was forced to let him go and duck without doing any damage, when a can of insect repellent hurtled toward them out of nowhere at incredible speed, just missing Shigaraki’s head. Izuku wasted no time in speeding out of reach and turning back to back with Shouto watching each other’s backs as villains surrounded them. This was not how Izuku had envisioned his day going.

Blue flames burst into life a short distance from where Izuku and Shouto stood, waiting for the villains to make their move. A kiosk selling cell phone accessories was suddenly engulfed in fire, and Izuku could feel the intense heat from where he stood, five meters away. The sprinklers had no effect on the fire. Screams erupted from the fleeing crowd, and Izuku could see some of his classmates on other levels of the mall directing people to the exits, unaware of the real cause of the alarm. 

Shouto set his foot on the ground, sending ice to try to extinguish the flames, but it barely got to the edge of the kiosk when he grunted in pain. Izuku looked over his shoulder and noted a knife-wielding schoolgirl leaping away from a pillar of ice. “She stabbed me in the leg,” Shouto said calmly. “She’s fast, so be careful.”

“You all work to keep all of these NPCs out of my way,” Shiigaraki told his crew. “This game is just getting started.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY! The League of villains makes an appearance! It took some time for Izuku to get noticed, but once he did, the villains aren’t wasting any time! Let me know what you think!


	18. A Real Villain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things at the shopping center go from bad to worse.

Another blue-flamed fire erupted a short distance from the first, igniting an ornamental shade tree, and causing smoke to rise into the air. Izuku hoped that someone would notice the smoke and call the authorities. As he considered the amount of people fleeing, it seemed as though this villain’s plan was not very well thought out. There was no way that some of the fleeing people weren’t already running away, and would soon be able to call for help. The fact that phones weren’t working (and probably computers as a side effect) would also be a huge red flag to anyone outside of the area who had been in contact with anyone at the mall. The plan was full of holes, unless… Unless they anticipated finishing this before help could arrive, or they _wanted_ the heroes and police to come and fight them. Neither scenario could have a good outcome. 

The other villains that had arrived spread out, forming a circle around Midoriya and Shouto, but their while their intelligence had told him where Izuku would be, it must not have included the fact that the entirety of class 1-A was on the scene. Izuku could see Kirishima’s bright red hair near the second floor railing, and Shouji and Tokoyami stood further down on the same level, guarding civilians as they helped security evacuate everyone. It was impressive how quickly such a crowded venue to be deserted in an emergency. Parents were carrying or pulling their children to the safety of the parking lots and roads outside the mall. There was crying and shouting and general chaos everywhere you looked.

One of the villains was wearing a one piece black costume with gray lines for decoration, gray boots and a mask that was gray from the top of his head to below his eyes, then unrelieved black. He was entirely covered from head to toe, so it was impossible to make out any features. Oddly, he seemed to be arguing with himself about whether ‘they’ had time to pick up a few items at the store before going home. It was just bizarre, and Izuku was starting to feel like he was in a fever dream, somehow.

“Hostages,” Shouto said, suddenly. “Look at the second and third floor railings.”

Izuku groaned inwardly when he saw that things were going from bad to worse. It seemed that Shigaraki had not been bluffing about having pawns everywhere; there were all types of villains standing at the railings at regular intervals, each holding a person captive. Some hostages were wearing store uniforms, but some were just kids Izuku’s own age, who had just been out for a day of shopping. The looks on their faces exposed their terror as their captors held them with various weapons, quirks or just plain brute strength. One hostage was a pregnant woman, and the villain holding her seemed to have a chainsaw for an arm and was holding it against her belly. Izuku felt sick.

“What’ll it be, little hero? You’re on the boss level with no power-ups,” Shigaraki told him, “Are you going to come with us willingly, or are people going to have to die?”

Izuku’s eyes traveled to each of the people being held against their will because of _him_. No - he couldn’t afford to think that way - because a villain wanted something from him. 

Shouto held his ground, and growled to Izuku, “Don’t believe it. People like him don’t keep their word. There’s no way he went to all this trouble, just to walk away when he gets one of his demands.”

“I know that,” Izuku answered firmly. Shigaraki had clearly told him just moments ago that he hated everyone and everything, and just wanted to destroy what he hated. He had even said that he wanted people to know about him and talk about his ‘accomplishments’ the way they did about Stain. Still… “I just don’t want anyone to die.”

“Then your choice should be simple,” Shigaraki said with a shrug.

Izuku studied this man who was so cavalier about hurting innocent people. Everything about him was pale and dry looking. His skin looked like it had never seen a drop of moisture, and left his lips cracked and his face with almost no color., save for his amber-red eyes. Even his hair was pale, tinged blue and hanging lank around his face. The strangest thing of all, though, was that Shigaraki reached into his jacket pocket and produced...a severed hand. The hand itself was grayish and lacking any sign of blood flow within, with a brass base where the wrist ended. The base appeared to have round ports of some kind in it, as though it could be connected to wires or hoses. While he watched, the man lifted the hand and fitted it over his own face, where it attached somehow and hung there, with Shigaraki’s cruel eyes peeking through the fingers in a sick parody of peek-a-boo.

What could this man possibly want from him? Who was the Sensei he’d said wanted to meet Izuku? What were the chances he’d live long enough to find out?

Before he could consider anything more, Shouto roughly shoved Izuku forward, causing him to lurch and try to keep his balance. Then, Shouto vanished. In an instant Izuku’s friend was gone. Izuku held back the need to hyperventilate by sheer force of will. Had one of those portals swallowed him? Had he been turned to dust by Shigaraki? No...he’d said it would take up to a minute for something like that.

“You got the wrong one, Mr. Compress,” Shigaraki said lazily, a hint of scolding in his tone. “Still...keep that brat, for now. He could be useful.”

“As you command.” One of the villains stepped forward with a flourishing hand movement, like a magician. ‘Mr. Compress’ was a tall man wearing a tall black had. He wore a black mask with cutouts for eyes and mouth. He held up a small marble and looked straight at Izuku. “You’re next, young man.”

“Who the hell are you?” 

Hitoshi suddenly landed in their midst, in front of Izuku, standing slightly crouched from from his drop from above, between the man and his target.

“Move out of the…” Mr. Compress began, only to stop mid-sentence.

“Release him,” Hitoshi commanded angrily. 

A moment later, the villain tossed the marble he held and Shouto reappeared with a gasp, both sides of his quirk flaring as he landed back on solid ground.

“Turn around, then go and turn yourself in to law enforcement.” Hitoshi told him.

Mr. Compress turned and began to walk, when another villain punched him in the face, shouting, “Snap out of it, you traitor!” then oddly, “Oh my gosh, are you okay?”

Mr. Compress shook his head in confusion, “What happened?” He patted his pockets as though looking for something, then spun to find Shouto standing behind him and gasped.

“We can’t have some NPC spoiling the fun,” Shigaraki said, suddenly moving with clearly enhanced speed toward Hitoshi.

Izuku shot forward then, and put himself between his best friend and the villain, barely feeling the burn of the slap against his face as Shigaraki’s hand made a swipe for Hitoshi, but hit him instead. Once Izuku was close enough, he swept Shigaraki’s leg and then kicked him backward, away from himself, Hitoshi and Shouto. 

“Your face!” Hitoshi muttered in shock. “What the hell?”

“Ooh! Look! He’s so much cuter, now! Just like at the Sports Festival!” Squealed a girl dressed in a high school uniform, holding a large knife. She wore sailor type uniform with a baggy sweater over it, and had her hair in two cutesy, messy buns on either side of her head. Her prominent canines flashed as she smiled, and she looked enraptured by Izuku’s appearance.

“You worry me sometimes, Toga,” said a man with heavy scarring visible on his face and chest. He appeared to have staples or piercings holding the scarred skin to the healthy. The scarred skin was a dark purple and puckered, as if whatever had caused it had scarred him to his core. Izuku wondered if the metal at the edges was a desired aesthetic or an unfortunate accident that left him looking like that, and it was actually holding him together. The man helped himself to a pastry from an abandoned cart and took a bite before torching the kiosk with a wave of his hand, the flames as blue as his eyes.

“But he’s so cute, Dabi! I just wanna carve him up!” Toga cried with simpering tones and exaggerated fluttering of her eyes.

Izuku felt a drop of liquid on his hand, and knew when he saw the red that his face was bleeding from where Shigaraki had made contact with his skin. The villain hadn’t been lying about his quirk, apparently. If that brief moment of contact had managed to remove enough skin to draw blood, Izuku shuddered to think what might have happened to Hitoshi, had he not intervened. He ignored the dripping from his face and concentrated on the matter at hand.

“We need to find a way to escape this. If they want Izuku, then the sooner we get him out of here, the faster they lose incentive to stick around,” Shouto said to Hitoshi.

“Iida took off to alert the police as soon as we realized communication had been cut, though I don’t think he knew it was a villain attack at the time,” Hitoshi said. “Still, a fire at a crowded mall is sure to have a hero response.”

“Any heroes that show up will be forced to deal with a huge hostage situation,” Izuku pointed out. “We need a plan. I could throw you two out.” He knew they’d understand that he was talking in a very literal sense.

“Don’t even think about facing these guys alone,” Shouto told him flatly, laying down a wall of ice to keep them separated from the villains on one side, at least. He didn’t even blink when blue flames shot out and obliterated the ice almost instantly, but it had been worth a try. Instead, he ended up freezing a knife that came hurtling from the girl in midair. It fell harmlessly to the ground.

“Spoil sport,” the girl pouted, pulling another knife from… somewhere.

“I could _make_ you leave,” Hitoshi said, more as an offer than a threat. “Like at the Sports Festival, where you didn’t have to think about it.”

Izuku just glared at him briefly, before turning his attention to take in everything happening around them. Hostages on each level...at least two dozen total, which meant at least two dozen villains aside from the ones in the central plaza. They had someone who could make portals, with an unknown limit to that power. Shigaraki seemed to be the one in charge, and he could deteriorate or disintegrate skin (any maybe more) with a touch of all five fingers. In addition to that, their group boasted someone who could trap them in marbles, someone who set intense fires of blue flame, a girl with knives, a reptilian man with a ridiculous looking weapon made of more weapons and two others who hadn’t tipped their hands, yet.

Where were his classmates? How many of them realized the true danger of their situation? He fervently hoped that they were out of harm’s way. “How long ago did Iida leave?” Izuku asked, wanting to mentally calculate how long they had to stall these villains.

“Maybe five minutes,” Hitoshi said grimly.

Izuku nodded and was mentally calculating. Hitoshi put a grounding hand on his shoulder, the pressure more firm than necessary, if he wasn’t trying to hold Izuku in place to keep him from attempting to do anything rash. Before any decision could be made, there was a sudden commotion that had all eyes falling on a newcomer.

Aizawa dropped from the rooftop and landed gracefully in a crouch in the center of the villains, capture weapon grasped in both hands. 

“Why am I not surprised to see you in the middle of this?” he asked sardonically, though he could have been talking to either Izuku or Shouto, with their history. 

Other heroes appeared from entrances and exits all round the courtyard, and suddenly clones of the hero Ectoplasm were popping up beside each villain holding a hostage. A helicopter could be heard approaching, from the sound of it. Sirens from police cars and emergency vehicles sounded in the distance Everyone seemed to pause to process the turn of events.

“Game over,” Muttered Shigaraki, suddenly scratching furiously at his neck. “How did they get here so fast? A glitch or a cheat! Looks like you earned an extra life. We’ll be meeting again, Midoriya Izuku. Sooner than you think.”

A warp gate opened as soon as he finished speaking, as if his words had been a signal. Shigaraki stepped backward into it, disappearing. Three more of the villains followed from the opposite side of the swirling portal, even while Aizawa moved to intercept them.

“I don’t think he should have to wait until next time,” the one called Compress said, beginning to raise a hand with a silvery marble nestled between each pair of fingers. Several shots rang out at that movement; Compress jerked and marbles flew as bullets hit his raised hand, shoulder and arm. At the same time, Aizawa’s eyes glowed red and his hair rose into the air, preventing the villain from using his quirk.

“Twice! Grab him and get him back to the hideout!” the lizard man shouted, diving for the portal, himself. 

The man called Twice shouted, “You’re not the boss of me!” Then leapt forward and grabbed Compress. They dove together after the lizard man, then the rest of the main villains melted into the swirling void, dodging around Eraserhead’s attempts to detain them, because he kept close to his students as a barrier. 

“Get down!” Hitoshi suddenly shouted, tackling Izuku, Shouto and Aizawa as the heavily scarred villain stopped before making his escape and raised both hands.  
“Burn in hellfire,” he said, emitting a stream of blue flame over their heads, setting fire to surrounding stores, trees and anything else in its path. Once done with that, he stepped backward and disappeared, along with the portal.

It wasn’t until the portal closed that Izuku could finally drag in a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He heard Hitoshi do the same and mutter, “Holy shit!”

They all climbed to their feet, and Todoroki was suddenly at Izuku’s side, pressing a handkerchief or large piece of gauze to his face. _’That’s right, I’m bleeding,’_ Izuku remembered, feeling the sting for the first time. He took over holding the cloth and looked around at the destruction taking place. Firemen were rushing in, sprinklers were activating. And the hostages were screaming while Ectoplasm and his clones rushed them away from their incapacitated captors. Everything glowed with an eerie blue light, despite the fact that it was day time. 

Remaining members of Class 1-A were being herded out of the mall area as the fire spread. Aizawa did a quick check of Izuku’s and Todoroki’s wounds, then motioned for them to make their way out of the mall toward the side that wasn’t on fire. All of their cellphones began ringing and pinging at once as reception was restored; either they’d caught the person jamming the signal, or he had fled.

How’d you get here so quickly, sensei?” Izuku asked as they followed directions and stayed out of the way of the men and women fighting the blaze.

“Me and Ectoplasm just happened to be in the area,” he replied with a straight face.

“And all those other heroes?” Hitoshi asked with a knowing smirk.

Izuku looked at them both with a sidelong glance. It seemed that their teacher hadn’t trusted them to ‘be responsible’ after all. 

“They must have been nearby,” Aizawa said with a shrug. “Midoriya, Todoroki, you go straight to the paramedics and have your face and leg looked at. Shinsou, you go with them; I don’t want any of you going anywhere alone at the moment. I have things to take care of.”

“Wait!” Hitoshi said suddenly. “How much trouble am I in?”

“What do you mean?” Aizawa asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I used my quirk on a villain without permission, and not in self defense,” Hitoshi said. “That’s...that’s against the law. Right?

Izuku had forgotten, and cringed when he recalled how he’d freed Shouto from the Mr. Compress guy. Surely he wouldn’t be punished for that.

“You’re imagining things, kid. It never happened.” Aizawa said with a meaningful glare. “I’m sure if you watch the footage from the security cameras, there’s nothing on there to show that you did anything wrong.”

“Uh...right. It must be the stress that made me think so,” Hitoshi agreed quickly.

Both boys heaved a sigh of relief and headed to the medics. Shouto kept his own counsel.

Izuku was intercepted at the paramedic’s truck by Detective Tsukauchi, who he gave a wry smile. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself. Looks like you need a trip to Recovery Girl,” he said sardonically. “You think you’re up to answering some questions?”

“Yeah. It’s not that deep.” Izuku looked to the medic to make sure it was okay to walk away before stepping over to the side, to make room for someone else who needed checking over. Hiroshi and Shouto followed along.

“Looks like Aizawa is rounding up the others,” Hitoshi observed, looking over the crowd to see Kirishima’s trademark red hair, and Shouji’s tall form about fifty meters away with their teacher. “Bakugou looks pissed about something.”

“Bakugou is always pissed about something,” Shouto said dryly, making Izuku laugh. The wound in Shouto's leg was deep, but clean. A medic bandaged it, and Recovery Girl could no doubt heal it in no time.

“Can you give me a quick summary of what happened?” Tsukauchi asked, “We can go into details later; just tell me the important stuff.”

“Well, he said that his name is Shigaraki Tomura and he’s with the League of Villains,” Izuku said, beginning the tale. He told the detective about his corrosive quirk and that he had wanted him to go meet his ‘sensei’.”

The other two boys also spoke up to talk about the other villains and the hostages. News crews began to arrive in droves, with more helicopters arriving with cameras mounted on their skids. That seemed to summon Aizawa, who swooped in gather up Izuku, Shouto and Hitoshi and hustle them away on a bus he’d asked Yuuei to send. Once Izuku and Iida had ushered everyone on board, Aizawa and Ectoplasm followed them onto the bus and stayed quiet until they were underway.

“If you haven’t already done it, call your parents or guardians to let them know you’re safe. There’s a good chance your faces have been, or will be, on the news. We’re taking you to Yuuei, and you can travel home from there,” their teacher told them before pulling out his own phone and making a call as he sat.

The bus was full of chatter as kids called parents and compared experiences with each other about where they’d been and what they’d done when everything happened. Izuku called Gran and told him he was safe.

“I already talked to Tsukauchi,” He said. “He’ll be comin’ by later to take a full statement. I’m glad you’re okay.”

“You and me both,” Izuku said sincerely. “That guy was creepy on all sorts of levels. I’ll tell you more about it when I get home.”

He put his phone away and rested his head against the back of the seat. Hitoshi was on his phone, and Izuku could hear Tosh’s foster mom’s frantic voice from across the aisle of the bus. Apparently she hadn’t been aware that anything had even happened until he’d called, and then she’d turned on the news and saw footage of the mall on fire. Izuku huffed a tired laugh at the look on Hitoshi’s face as he tried to calm her down. 

Shouto was sitting beside Izuku, looking tired, but calm. 

“Did you call home?” Izuku asked him quietly.

“No need. My father probably already knows all about it, and there’s no need to worry Fuyumi. She’d just fret over it until I got home, and there’s nothing she can do.” Shouto answered simply. “I’m sure I’ll end up having to tell everyone about it in detail anyway, so I might as well do it all at once.”

Izuku could appreciate the economy of the idea. He thought about his own mother, and what her reaction might have been, and smiled a bit to himself. No doubt she’d accuse him of trying to give her a heart attack and soak them both in tears. It was nice to be able to think about her without his own tears threatening. There was still a huge hole in his life, but the sharpness of losing her was beginning to soften, letting the happier, sweeter memories of her surface. Suddenly, the bus seemed a bit quieter than it had, and he realized that it wasn't a cessation of chatter, but that his heart wasn’t thundering in his ears they way it had been for the last hour.

“Are you doing all right?” Shouto asked after a stretch of silence. “That was pretty intense back there.”

“I’ll be okay,” Izuku assured him. “I guess we’ll have to get used to stuff like this, if we’re going to be pros. How about you? You got stabbed in the leg.”

“It’s fine. Being caught by that Compress guy was strange,” he admitted. “One second I was trying to keep you from being hit by something he was throwing, and the next second I was in a completely different position and Shinsou was there.”

“So, you didn’t realize you’d been captured until you were let go?” Izuku asked, already thinking about the implications and pros and cons of such a quirk.

“I guess I felt...pressure? Kind of like there was a weight pressing down on me? But it only lasted a second, and then I was back. It was very disorienting.” Shouto explained, as if just now giving it serious thought. “He could have very easily just abducted me, couldn’t he?”

“He was aiming at me, but got you instead,” Izuku said apologetically. “But then Shigaraki said that they should take you, too. That you’d be useful?”

“Probably to keep for ransom,” Shouto said with a nod. “Someone tried to kidnap me when I was eight. They told police that they just wanted money.”

“You were kidnapped?” Izuku was amazed that he could be so calm about it. 

“No, but they tried. I got scared when they grabbed me and froze them.” 

Izuku knew his mouth was hanging open, but couldn’t help it. Shouto what just so...amazing! “What did your father do?” 

“Well, the police suggested a bodyguard for me, but my father just laughed and pointed out that I could take care of myself.” Shouto didn’t look like he felt upset in any way, but just stated it as a fact.

“You should come and hang out at my house, some time,” Izuku decided. It would do his friend some good to get away from the rigid rules and absentee parenting that was normal for him. “You could train with me and Gran.”

“Gran is the old man who came to the hospital,” Shouto said, showing interest. “He helps you train?”

“He was a hero a long time ago, and his quirk is amazing! He converts the air he breathes into jets of air from the soles of his feet that let him shoot around super fast.” Izuku shared enthusiastically. He was All Might’s homeroom teacher for a year when All Might went to Yuuei!”

“Wait...what? You never told me that!” Hitoshi said from across the aisle. “What the hell?”

“I could swear I told you!” Izuku said, turning to look at HItoshi. “Oops?”

“Your grandfather got to teach All Might?” Uraraka asked excitedly.

Heads turned at that, and Midoriya flailed, waving his hands in denial. “He’s not my grandfather, but he _is_ my legal guardian. He was a hero a long time ago, when All Might was our age. He said he was a homeroom teacher at Yuuei during All Might’s third year.”

“That’s so cool!” Sero said, leaning forward over the seat in front of him to listen in. 

“You’re so lucky!” Ashido agreed.

“You only said he was an old friend of the family! No wonder he can kick our butts so easily!” Histoshi said, shaking his head. 

“Can we meet him?” Hagakure asked.

“Uh...probably? If you guys are ever at my house?” Izuku said, knowing Gran didn’t care about meeting kids from his class. “He’s pretty grouchy a lot of the time.”

“He’s a marshmallow when it comes to Zu,” Hitoshi said with a smirk.

“A marshmallow that can kick his butt?” Kirishima joked.

“Training is completely different from that,” Izuku said with feeling. “In training, there is no mercy.”

The excited chatter and new topic of conversation did wonders for the mood on the bus, and the heavy atmosphere lifted a bit. They arrived at Yuuei and Izuku and Todoroki were sent off to Recovery Girl with Hitoshi and Uraraka for company. 

“You’ll have a bit of a scar until it heals completely ...maybe a couple of months,” Recovery Girl told Izuku with a shake of her head as she checked her handiwork. “There are four spots that went a bit deeper than the rest; probably the tips of his fingers.”

Izuku looked in the hand mirror that she gave him and saw that his left cheek had some pink spots, but nothing very noticeable. Even Uraraka had to squint to see it from a few steps away.

“Don’t worry, Zu, scars are super manly!” Hitoshi joked.

Izuku blushed slightly as his eyes immediately shot over to the scar around Shouto’s eye. “Is it okay for us to go home now?” he asked as he picked up his bag and threw it over his shoulder.

She nodded and shooed them away, and they started back to the front gate, only to run into Aizawa and Nezu.

Todoroki excused himself with a polite bow and continued toward the gates, headed for the train station.

“You’re getting a ride home, problem child,” Aizawa told Izuku, then looked at Hitoshi and Uraraka.. “You two can come along, but Detective Tsukauchi is going to meet us at Midoriya’s house to get a formal statement. You two can give your statements at the same time, if you like.”

“I’ve spoken with your parents, Miss Uraraka,” Nezu said kindly, “and they have given me permission to act in your best interest in their absence, since parental presence or permission is needed to give a formal statement.”

Uraraka looked surprised, but merely nodded and agreed. They all left the school building where a large SUV was waiting. Aizawa took the wheel and Nezu the passenger seat, leaving the three students to climb into the back seat. The ride didn’t take long, and soon they were all seated in Izuku’s living room.

Hitoshi’s step parents were sitting on chairs that Gran must have brought in, and Hitoshi looked very surprised to see them there. He allowed his stepmother (Mihoko) to hug and fuss over him a bit, then sat with them while everyone got settled. Uraraka took a seat next to a policeman who was sitting rather stiffly on the sofa. Izuku went to help Gran bring out a pot of tea and some snacks to set out, then was about to sit when the doorbell rang. He dutifully checked the camera feed and was surprised to find Shouto and Fuyumi standing on the doorstep. 

Izuku invited the newest arrivals inside and went to fetch the other two chairs from the kitchen. This was the most people that had been in the house for a long time, and there weren’t enough seats to go around. In the end, the officer stood and gave his seat to Fuyumi, with Nezu perched on the arm of the couch beside Aizawa, who stood next to it.

“I think everyone we’re expecting has arrived,” Detective Tsukauchi announced as everyone got settled. “Thank you all for coming, and thanks to Midoriya-kun and Gran Torino for letting us meet in their home.”

All eyes were on the detective, who had his notebook out and was consulting a couple of pages before continuing.

“The reason I asked you all to come here is because Midoriya, Shinsou and Todoroki were at the epicenter of the attack and had contact with the one who seems to be the leader of this _League_. It will be easier to get a complete statement if we’re all in the same room at the same time, and this is much more comfortable and private than the station.”

Privacy was going to be an issue, Izuku could tell, since he still didn’t know how the League of Villains had known where they would be. He knew that Gran kept the place locked down pretty well as far as security went (though it really vexed him that Hitoshi was able to sneak in, somehow).

Izuku began the narrative, describing how Shigaraki had approached him, the threats he had made, and an altered version of the conversation where his connection to All Might had been mentioned. Shouto related his version of events, where he returned from the bathroom to find someone with their arm around Izuku. How it had seemed strange, so he’d stopped to listen to what was being said and realized that he was making threats against innocent people to coerce Midoriya. Hitoshi added in his point of view, and completed the picture for everyone in the room. Tsukauchi had made notes the entire time, as well as recording it all on audio. Uraraka had less to add, as she had been inside a large store when the alarms went off and had helped guide people to the exits. 

Todoroki Fuyumi raised her hand timidly, as though a student and asked, “How did these villains find out where Midoriya-kun would be, and how did they gather so many accomplices there so quickly?”

Gran grimaced and said, “Part of that is my fault.”

Izuku’s eyes widened as he stared at Gran. “How?”

“Our girl that comes in to clean was here today,” he explained. “I was out at the store, and so when a girl came to the door that looked like a high school student and asked where Izuku was, she told her. I don’t know how they mobilized so quickly, but that seems to be how they knew where to go.”

“It’s probable that they had this planned further in advance, and would have enacted it anywhere that Midoriya went,” Aizawa said grimly. “He seems to be the focus of their interest. If he had gone to the zoo or an amusement park, they probably would have shown up there, instead. They simply took advantage of the opportunity to put an existing plan into action.”

Izuku was stunned that a group of villains had gone to that much trouble just to get to him. “Why not just grab me off the street on my way to or from school? That seems like it would have been a lot easier.”

“Shigaraki seems obsessed with being known to the public and making people take notice of him and his organization,” Tsukauchi said. “If that’s his goal, then the bigger a commotion he causes, the better for him. He and his group are already being talked about all over Japan. Unfortunately, so are these kids, Yuuei, and Class 1-A in particular. So far, the kids are all being commended for their quick thinking and helping keep the public safe without engaging in combat. The press will have its eyes on them, so they’ll need to be carefully trained on how to speak to reporters or extricate themselves from situations where they don’t want to talk to them.”

“We will see to it,” Nezu assured everyone in the room. “That is something we usually hold off on until closer to graduation, but we don’t seem to have that luxury this time.”

“Is it going to be safe for them to go on the camping trip?” Fuyumi asked quietly. “I know it’s for training, and they’re capable kids, but…”

“We’re already working on securing a new location that will remain a closely guarded secret among staff on a need to know basis,” Nezu said calmly. “Of course we’ll also let you know, if you feel it necessary. We take the safety of our students very seriously, I assure you.”

Tsukauchi thanked them all for coming and apologized for leaving them so quickly, but he had a few more students to get statements from before they left for the training camp. He and the officer departed, leaving the adults and four students to discuss things.

“I...should probably go home,” Uraraka told them, looking tired.

“No!” Hitoshi and Izuku both said in unison.

“You can’t,” Izuku said worriedly. Then he turned to Aizawa and explained, “She lives by herself; her parents are too far away. She shouldn’t be going back there alone with reporters and stuff out looking for information, right?”

“They’re not wrong,” Aizawa said to Uraraka.

“Do you have a friend you could stay with, young lady?” Nezu asked.

“She can stay here,” Gran said gruffly. “If it’s all right with the kid, we’ve got an extra room.”

Izuku was quiet for a moment. His mother’s room had been cleared out of her clothing by helpful friends and coworkers, and personal items had been packed away in the closet, leaving an impersonal space that they had basically just been ignoring for months. It even had its own bathroom. Still… he took a deep breath and let go of the image in his mind that it was his mother’s room. She would not be returning, and he had a friend in need; his mom would have been the first to offer her the room, even if she’d still been alive.

“It’s fine,” Izuku said with a decisive nod. “We can go get your stuff, and you can stay here until we leave for training on Monday. If you don’t mind staying here with two guys, that is.”

“I couldn’t…” Uraraka said uncertainly.

“You can, and you should,” Hitoshi said firmly. “Otherwise we’d just be worried about you.”

“If you’re sure,” she relented, “Then thank you very much!”

“We can drive her to get her things,” Aizawa said, and Nezu nodded.

“We’ll have dinner waiting when you get back,” Gran told her kindly.

When they had left, Hitoshi was taken away by his parents. He promised to be there early for their morning run, doubting that the press would be up at five to chase them. 

Fuyumi turned down an offer of dinner and left with Shouto, leaving Izuku and Gran alone for the time being.

“This is one hell of a day you’ve had,” Gran said. “You sure you’re alright?”

“I uh...I had to leave some stuff out when I told Tsukauchi what happened,” Izuku admitted sheepishly. “Stuff I couldn’t say in front of the others.”

Gran eyed him warily. “Well, let’s get dinner started and you can tell me about it while we cook. That girl is going to be back soon.”

They went into the kitchen and decided on pasta, since it was fast and easy. As they prepared the food, Izuku told Gran about Shigaraki implying that he knew about One For All, and that he’d gotten his quirk from All Might. Gran let out of string of swear words that would have made Bakugou blush, and agitatedly told Izuku to text Detective Tsukauchi to ask for a private meeting as soon as possible. 

6:21 PM _This is Midoriya Izuku. Gran wanted me to ask you for a private meeting ASAP about something that Shigaraki said today. Please. Thank you._

“I know this is bad,” Izuku said as he hit send on the message, “but you seem even more upset than I expected, and I expected a lot.”

Gran sighed. “Kid. The signs are all there. This Shigaraki guy talked about his ‘Sensei’ and how his ‘Sensei’ was interested in your performance at the Sports Festival and did some digging about you. Unless I miss my guess, this villain’s ‘Sensei’ sounds an awful lot like_ All For One_.”

Izuku paled and put down the knife he’d been holding. “You said he was dead.”

“He should be. I don’t know how he pulled through, but I can’t think of anyone else in this world that would associate with villains who knows that One For All can be passed one from person to person.” Gran said grimly. 

Izuku was at a loss for what to say or think. The man that had _killed All Might_ AND every previous holder of One For All was alive, and wanted to ‘meet’ him. 

“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.” he muttered as he digested the information and the implications of it all.

“That about sums it up,” Gran agreed. “I think...I think it’s about time we let Aizawa in on your secret, kid. That man can’t be expected to do right by you without knowing everything he needs to keep you safe and teach you properly.”

“You think it’s safe to tell him?” Izuku wondered.

“I checked him out thoroughly when I found out he was going to be your teacher. Nezu and Sir Nighteye both agree he’s reliable, trustworthy and capable. My gut is saying we can trust him.” Gran admitted.

“I’m just worried it’ll put him in danger,” Izuku fretted. 

“He’s a pro hero, kid. He knows that danger comes with the territory. I’m a rarity in this day and age; most heroes don’t make it to see their ‘elderly’ years. It’s the nature of the job.” Gran said, watching him closely.

“I know that,” Izuku nodded. “I just...don’t want to be the cause of anyone’s early demise.”

“Trust me, kid. None of us do.”

Uraraka arrived and got settled, and the next morning, they went over their lists of things they needed for their departure the following day. It was surprisingly little, all told: just their basic toiletries and clothes, plus things you’d expect for being outdoors like insect repellent and sunscreen. Gran promised to go with them to pick up the last of the items they needed. 

By lunchtime, they were pretty much packed and Gran left them alone to go meet with ‘a friend’ that Izuku knew was Detective Tsukauchi, and most likely Aizawa-sensei. He didn’t envy them the headache they’d probably have after the information that Gran would be sharing with them. He hadn’t slept well the night before, thinking about how everything had gone sideways just twenty-four hours ago. 

Uraraka was good company, and they spent the afternoon playing video games, when Hitoshi showed up with all of his stuff and announced that he was spending the night.

“My parents got a puppy,” he said as he dropped his bag in the living room.

“Aw! Lucky! What kind is it?” Uraraka asked.

“The kind that pees on my laundry as I’m trying to pack it. Twice.” Hitoshi said, not sounding amused. “It’s only about two kilograms, I don’t even know how it can pee that much!” Gomi came trotting up to greet him and climbed him like a tree to sit on his shoulder and rumble like a freight train.

Uraraka burst out laughing at that sight and cooed over how cute it was.

“And YOU,” Hitoshi pointed at Izuku. “Check your phone! The group chat is going crazy, and Iida is reminding everyone to pack adequate underwear supplies.”

Izuku groaned and went to get his phone off the charger, even as Uraraka got out her phone and opened it, only to burst out laughing a moment later at the chaos going on. 

When Gran finally made it home, it was to find Hitoshi passed out on the couch with two cats curled up around his head. Uraraka dozing on his easy chair, and Izuku sitting on the floor, looking up at him from where he’d been reading something one his phone.

“Welcome home,” Izuku said quietly. “How did it go?”

“I’m home,” Gran returned. “Well...it went.”

Izuku winced at that.

“Was Aizawa there? Does he know about All Might giving me his--” Izuku suddenly seemed to remember that his friends were in the room and cut off what he was saying before Gran could.

“He knows,” Gran confirmed. “He’s not sure what to make of it, but for now he’s aware. You three ready for tomorrow? You’re leaving pretty early. You should be asleep.”

He didn’t seem the least bit fazed to find Hitoshi there. He left him on the couch and walked to gently shake Uraraka’s shoulder. “Bedtime, young lady.”

Uraraka groaned sleepily, but pushed to her feet, rubbing her eyes. “I guess I fell asleep. Sorry.”

“Good night, Uraraka,” Izuku said quietly, taking a throw blanket from the back of the couch and draping it over Hitoshi.

Everyone went to sleep, though Izuku had a hard time getting there, with everything running through his brain, telling him all of the ways life could go wrong, now that All For One was known to be alive and looking for him.

The morning seemed to come in the blink of an eye, and bleary eyed teens quickly ate toast and eggs before grabbing their bags and bidding Gran goodbye for the week. They took up too much room on the train with their large bags, but it was early enough that commuters weren’t that numerous, yet. 

Of course, Iida was already at the school, ready to greet everyone and make sure everything was in order. With a wide yawn, Izuku went over to do his part to help as co-representative, dutifully checking names off of the roll as the others arrived. There was no sign of Class 1-B, so he supposed they had a different meeting spot. He wasn’t even sure they were training at the same location, now that he thought of it. Students arrived one by one, many yawning widely or half asleep on their feet as they waited for the bus to arrive. When it did, Aizawa waited until they all stowed their luggage and boarded, then tried to settle everyone down.

“We’ll be stopping in about an hour and then…” Eraserhead noticed that almost no one was paying attention and gave up trying with a shrug.

The bus was suddenly lively, with the students who had just been near zombies suddenly getting riled up with the promise of the coming adventure. Snacks were passed around, playlists debated, games played and jokes told. It was obvious that the stress of the past week was beginning to decompress in their minds, and elation that their exams were over was high.

As promised, about an hour passed before the bus pulled off the road onto a lookout point, and the students got off to stretch their legs. There were none of the usual amenities of a traditional rest stop though; no toilets or vending machines waited to be used. Instead, there was another vehicle there, and two women and a small child were standing with Aizawa when Izuku got off the bus with Iida after making sure everyone had gotten out.

“It’s Mandalay and Pixie Bob of the Wild, Wild, Pussycats!” Izuku hissed excitedly to Iida as he caught sight of them.

“Of course we stopped here for a reason,” Aizawa said, when students voiced their confusion.

“Rock on with these sparkling gazes!” one of the women announced suddenly, stretching dramatically.

“Stunningly cute and catlike!” cried the other one, striking a pose.

“We’re the _Wild, Wild Pussycats_!” they cheered in unison.

“They’re a four member hero team who work under a single agency!” Izuku supplied knowledgeably, unable to hide his enthusiasm. “They’ve been working together for twelve years, specializing in mountain rescue! “

“We’re _eighteen_ at heart!” the blond woman said firmly, slapping a large paw-like glove over Izuku’s mouth and covering half of his face.

“This whole area is our territory,” said the other woman, pointing out over the valley. “Your lodging is at the foot of that mountain over there.”

“So far away!” Hagakure marveled. 

“Then why’d we stop half way?” Uraraka asked.

“Uh-oh,” Sato groaned as realization dawned.

“We should get back to the bus...fast.” Sero said, sweat popping up on his brow.

“I’m thinking you’ll be able to make it there by noon at the earliest,” one of the Pussycats told them. Kittens who don’t make it by twelve thirty won’t get any lunch!”

“Aw, crap!” Kirishima muttered, “Please tell me she’s joking.”

Many of the kids had tried to run back to the safety of the bus, but it was far too late for that. Izuku only had a moment steel himself before a wave of earth heaved under his feet, and the entirety of class 1-A was tossed over the railing of the cliff they were on and hurtled into the forest below.


	19. Side Story - Aizawa learn the truth about Izuku's quirk.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This fits in with the previous chapter, told in Aizawa's POV.

Aizawa was tired. Well, he was _always_ tired, but he was especially so as he dragged himself down to the police station. 

The previous day had been a nightmare. Even though he and Ectoplasm had decided to stay near the shopping center the kids planned to meet at just in case, they really hadn’t expected there to be any trouble, other than the kids getting too rowdy. When all hell had broken loose, it had taken them precious minutes to assess the situation and plan their intervention.

Any outing that ends with a shopping center on fire is bad one, really. He thanked whatever gods were watching over them that his students had acted responsibly and none of them had been injured. He was actually proud of the way they’d responded immediately to the fire alarms and helped direct shoppers to the exits. Even more than that, Bakugou hadn’t attacked any of the villains holding innocent people hostage; that was proof of _growth_.

Then, there was the problem child. Midoriya had become a target of a burgeoning villain organization somehow, for reasons that were not altogether clear. Shinsou and Todoroki had come to his aid, and as proud as he was of them for that, they may have unwittingly escalated the situation with the ferocity of their friendship. He was still gathering facts, appeasing worried parents and filling out tons of paperwork. The press didn’t even bear thinking about.

Then there was Uraraka. He had been vaguely aware that she lived on her own, but hadn’t realized how...underprivileged a life she was living. There had been no food in her little refrigerator, and while she’d been packing her things, he’d looked in her cabinets to find them basically bare. There was almost no furniture, either. How this girl lived with so little and still showed up to class cheerfully and ready to learn, he didn’t know. He would have to look into seeing about a scholarship or something to help her make ends meet. The expression on Nezu’s face had been hard to read, but it seemed he might be thinking along the same lines. 

And now he had a female student staying in the home of an unrelated male student, which could raise other problems that he definitely didn’t want to deal with.

So, yes, he was tired as he entered the police station, got his visitor’s pass and found his way to Tsukauchi’s tiny, cramped office. The fact that Gran Torino (Izuku’s guardian) was also there told Aizawa that there was probably another potential problem about to drop in his lap.

“Good afternoon, Aizawa-san!” Tsukauchi greeted him, standing and giving a little bow. “Please come in and have a seat. I apologize for the perpetual mess in here.”

The desk was relatively clear, but there were files and stacks of papers all over the rest of the room. There were photographs on the wall in an attempt to make the space a little more ‘homey’, but they really just added to the clutter. 

“Eraserhead,” Gran Torino greeted, nodding his head. 

“Old man,” Aizawa nodded back. “What’s this all about?”

“Shut the door, would you?” the detected requested. “This needs to be kept private.”

With a raised eyebrow, Shouta closed the door, and was secretly impressed how completely the noise of the outer cubicles and offices was cancelled out. He took a seat in the only other chair, beside Gran.

“I would get straight to the point, but you need to be brought up to speed, first,” Gran told him. “Once you hear everything we have to say, it will be obvious that this is absolutely confidential information.”

“Why do I already have a feeling I’m about to have a headache?” Shouta muttered.

“Because you probably will,” Tsukauchi said with a wry expression.

“Since I’m here, you’ve probably guessed that this is about Izuku,” Gran began. “And it starts about six years ago, before I even met the kid…”

Aizawa could feel a buzzing in his blood that he recognized as anger and pity and a variety of other emotions all warring with each other to take precedence in his head. All Might, the symbol of fucking peace, had forcibly passed his quirk to an unknowing, unaware, unprepared, quirkless, nine-year-old boy at the moment of his death. It was ridiculously irresponsible, and though he wanted to give the hero the benefit of the doubt and say that such spectacular misjudgment was caused by emotional turmoil and blood loss, he simply couldn't forgive it.

He could think of so many things that could have gone wrong...that _had_ gone wrong. He had given the strongest quirk in the whole fucking world to an emotionally and physically abused boy with no preparation and _no knowledge_ that he’d even received it. Then they’d seen fit to drop him into the hero course without warning the people responsible for his education and well being about it? Brilliant. Just fucking brilliant. Shoua gritted his teeth in anger, but remained silent.

That wasn’t even the best part, apparently.

“So, now that you know that much,” Gran said, after relating how he and Nezu had arranged for training and strengthen the kid. “Yesterday, at the mall, the villain Shigaraki implied that he knows that the kid has All Might’s quirk.”

“What.” Aizawa was just about at his explosion point. His left eye was twitching dangerously, and if Hizashi had been there, he would have been trying to calm him down...or maybe gearing up to explode, too.

Gran sighed and rubbed his eyes, telling him everything Izuku had said about his interaction with Shigaraki.

“All For One is alive, then,” Tsukauchi groaned. “Even after all of these years of no sign of activity.”

“Seems like it,” Gran said. “He always did like to operate from the shadows.”

“You’re telling me that the villain that murdered All Might is alive, and will be coming after at least one of my students?” Aizawa recapped, rubbing his itchy eyes before pulling out the eye drops. “You say Nezu is aware of this?”

“He knows about Izuku inheriting the power, but we haven’t told him about All For One being alive, yet.” Gran said with a nod. “But the man’s a genius, so he might already have figured that out.”

“Perfect,” Shouto grumbled. “Just perfect. And now Izuku and Uraraka are alone in a house the press knows the location of, with no adults or heroes or police there? They. Are. Targets. Why did you think it would be a good idea to leave them?”

“There _are_ police units watching the place,” Tsukauchi said. “There are probably more police watching the student’s houses right now than watching the rest of the city. Nezu also has a few staff watching the Shinsou, Todoroki and Midoriya homes.”

Aizawa would argue that since one of the villains used a warping quirk, it didn’t matter how many people were outside, but he didn’t know if it would matter if anyone was inside, either. He’d seen for himself how that worked.

With a long-suffering sigh, Aizawa considered his options. “So...the kid has All Might’s quirk. Are you expecting him to be the next ‘symbol for peace,’ too? How am I supposed to…”

“The same way you have been,” Gran interrupted him. “He doesn’t need special treatment; he needs a good teacher, who understands what he’s up against and is willing to work with him and help him figure it all out. That’s it. We just wanted you to know what _you_ were up against.”

“Midoriya’s a great kid who’s been through a _lot_,” Tsukauchi said simply. “And if what we’re learning now is any indication, he’ll be going through a lot more. We’re going to need to work on as a team to keep him safe while he learns how to be a proper hero.”

“I can do that,” Aizawa said, asking himself for the zillionth time why he ever agreed to be a teacher. “I _will_ do that. I just wish… well, it doesn’t matter what I wish. I have some things to take care of for camp, still. I’m sure I’ll have more questions and need more information once we get back.”

As he left the meeting, Aizawa was still tired, but now he wondered if he’d sleep well again before Midoriya Izuku graduated from Yuuei.


	20. It's Just One Thing After Another

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, it’s a good thing I got ahead in the week I had to write, because I am behind again. This is the busiest time of the year for me at work (I work both in a school library and at an after school program). There was a book fair (which means a hundred or so new books to process and get on the shelves) , then a Halloween carnival (I made so. Many. Balloon. Animals.) and tomorrow I’ll be helping out at another Halloween carnival at a different rec center (where I’ll be face painting). That all takes a lot of prep! So...I don’t have my usual buffer of five chapters ahead, and I’m feeling like my writing isn’t flowing well. Long story short...there is no point to this bit of personal information except to say I’m stressed out. Please enjoy a chapter I wrote before I lost my last two brain cells and my life got insanely busy.

“Enjoy the beast’s forest, kids! This whole valley is our private area, so feel free to use your quirks!” Mandalay shouted after them.

It was the last thing he heard from her as Izuku was pelted with rocks and clumps of dirt that fell with him to the forest floor. He tried to orient himself, but was slow to turn upright, and landed awkwardly, skidding to a stop on his back, wincing at the scrape of gravel against his suddenly bare skin. His shirt had been torn away in back by the friction, and his back was abraded, but nothing too bad. He took stock of the surrounding area, noting his friends weren’t much better off than he was. Except for Shouto, who seemed to have had the presence of mind to make an ice slide for himself, escaping a harsh landing. 

Everyone was getting to their feet and dusting themselves off, when Iida spoke up loudly. “She pointed in that direction,” he told them all, slicing the air with strong hand and arm movements as he pointed. “We should stay together and move as quickly as possible.”

“It can’t be that easy,” Hitoshi said, looking around warily. 

“Yeah,” Kaminari agreed, “She said this was a beast’s forest. You think we’ll have to fight bears or something?”

“Not bears,” Kirishima said, looking up.

There was a sudden scraping and creaking sound that drew their attention to a large...beast. It looked something like a dinosaur and was absolutely huge, towering over them menacingly, covered in stony armor.

“Beast! Calm yourself and stand down!” Kouda shouted, the loudest any of them had ever heard him speak.

The beast paid no attention and advanced on them with ferocity, spurring Iida, Midoriya, Bakugou and Kirishima into action. The first beast crumbled under the onslaught of kicks, punches and blasts, revealing not blood and viscera, but dirt and grass.

“It’s Pixie-Bob!” Izuku shouted, even as another beast popped up in their path. “Her quirk is _Earth Flow_, and she can manipulate the ground, and make into pretty much anything she wants!”

“Great. Happen to know her range?” Sato asked, pulling a handful of dirty sugar cubes from his pocket and tossing them in his mouth.

“It’s pretty extensive from what I’ve read,” Izuku grunted, punching a hole in a cow-sized monstrosity, causing it to fall to pieces.

“Hey, Todoroki,” Hitoshi said to Shouto, as he stepped backward to avoid flying rocks. “Think you can boost me back up to the top of the cliff?”

“What do you have in mind?” Shouto asked.

“If I can get up there, I might be able to use my quirk to get her to stop,” Hitoshi told him with a hopeful look.

“Hang on.” Shouto put down his foot and an ice platform materialized under Hitoshi’s feet and shot him upward. 

Izuku snorted as his best friend let out an unmanly shriek of surprise, but was too preoccupied fighting to watch his progress. Izuku’s knuckles were raw, but his fingers were not broken as he used One For All at the full fifteen percent of his capabilities. His classmates were working together to bring down other beasts, and they were making very slow progress in the direction they’d been told to go. At the rate they were going forward, they might reach the lodge by the end of the week, if they were lucky (or still alive).

Almost as abruptly as their attack had begun, it ended. All of the beasts tumbled into non-threatening heaps in an instant, leaving everyone but Shouto and Izuku looking bewildered. They stood huffing and puffing, spitting out dirt and wiping away blood until Hitoshi dropped back to the ground with a cocky grin. 

“We should have some time to move before anyone discovers she’s just standing up there, doing nothing,” he told them all. “Aizawa and Mandalay weren’t up there, and the bus is gone. I suggest we move before they figure it out.”

“Let’s go!” Ashido cried, stopping to drop a smacking kiss on Hitoshi’s cheek in thanks. 

They look off running, trusting Iida to lead them in the right direction; their phones had no reception out here the mountains. They’d made it almost an hour before any more beasts reformed to challenge them, and by that time, they were close enough to the lodge that it only took them an hour to break through into the clearing to see the bus, Aizawa and the two Pussycats waiting for them.

“I’m impressed!” Pixie-Bob praised them as they approached, tired and sore. She looked absolutely delighted. “You made it just in time for lunch! I never expected you to figure out the source of the beasts and come after me!”

“Get your bags from the bus and go in and wash up,” Aizawa told them blandly, as if his students hadn’t just achieved the extraordinary. “If any of you need first aid, come and see me.”  
His gaze swung to Izuku, who grinned and held up bloody knuckles.

Uraraka also hobbled forward with a swollen ankle, and Asui stepped up with a cut on her upper arm from a tree branch. The rest went inside to clean up and change clothes. 

Izuku patiently waited while Mandalay sprayed disinfectant on his hands and wrapped them in gauze. When he turned to go, she gasped and grabbed his arm to stop him.

“Your back!”

“Oh yeah! I forgot. It’s probably not as bad as it looks,” he said, trying in vain to crane his neck to see the damage.

“It looks pretty bad, _kero_” Asui said as her arm was wrapped. 

“Holy hell, Deku! You back looks like ground meat!” Uraraka said, sounding almost awed.

“It only stings a bit,” he avered, not wanting them to worry. I’m sure if I just shower and wash it off, it’ll be fine.”

He was partially right...once the blood was washed away, it wasn’t nearly as angry and raw looking, but he did have some long gouges and scratches descending down to his waistband. 

“Yeowch,” Hitoshi said when he saw it. “It looks like a herd of cats used you for a scratching post.”

“It’s fine,” Izuku said with a sigh, then _screeched_ when Hitoshi slapped him on the back.

“That’s the spirit!” Hitoshi told him with an evil grin as Izuku called him an asshole.

They went outside to a pavilion with outdoor tables and cooking facilities. Everyone was famished from their trying morning, and greedily accepted the barbequed kabobs and rice on offer. After a lively meal they just stayed seated and chatted, waiting to find out what would be next on the agenda.

“Uh, excuse me,” Izuku asked Mandalay as she passed his table carrying a tray of empty bowls. “That boy over there...is he one of the Pussycat’s kids? He doesn’t look very happy.”

The boy in question had been sitting off to the side, away from everyone else, looking angry and not touching his food. Izuku had noticed him before they’d been tossed off the cliff earlier, but hadn’t had time to think about it until now.

“That’s Kota,” she answered, looking sad. “He’s my nephew, who lives with me now. He’s not very fond of heroes, and isn’t happy about being here.”

Izuku felt bad for the kid. He wasn’t sure why he’d been sent to live with his aunt, but if Kota didn’t like heroes, this must be really boring for him. He got up from his seat and walked over to where the kid was getting up, looking like he was abandoning his lunch,.

“Hi there!” Izuku said, putting on a cheerful smile. “Mandalay says your name is Kota! I’m Midoriya. Would you like to come hang out with…_URGHK_!”

The sound Izuku made was inhuman as the kid punched him as hard as he could, right in his crotch. The kid had a strong arm, Izuku had to give him that much credit. He fell to one knee as Bakugou called out, “Nice going, kid!” with a raucous laugh.

Every male student who saw what had happened winced in sympathy, many hissing between their teeth when Izuku dropped. Iida immediately rushed to Izuku’s side, with Hitoshi following at a more sedate pace, looking both amused and empathetic at the same time. 

“Why would you do that to Midoriya’s scrotum?” Iida cried, putting a steadying hand on Izuku’s shoulder as he tried to get his composure back.

“What the hell, kid?” Hitoshi asked in calmer tones.

“You hero wannabes all _suck_!” Kota announced loudly, glaring at them all collectively before turning and running off.

“That’s some kid you’ve got on your hands,” Aizawa told Mandalay, looking at Izuku with something akin to pity.

“_Kota!_” Mandalay called out, looking and sounding horrified. “COME BACK HERE AND APOLOGIZE!”

Kota just kept going until he disappeared into the trees.

“I’m so sorry, Midoriya-kun,” she said worriedly. “I can’t believe he did that!”

Izuku coughed a couple of times and shook his head. “Is he going to be okay?”

“Dude, you just took a shot to the nuts, and you’re asking if the kid who did it will be okay? The real question is if _you’re_ okay?” Kaminari said in dismay.

“He’ll be fine. He knows the area well, and has some sort of secret base or hideout he goes to when he wants to be alone,” she said. “I’ll make sure he understands how awful that was for him to do.”

“It seems like he was lashing out,” Izuku said, slowly getting to his feet and moving his hips gingerly to test the pain level. “He’s probably not even mad at me, in particular.”

“He’s been angry ever since his parents died,” Mandalay said softly, looking sad. “But it’s still wrong to attack people who haven’t done anything wrong. Please forgive him.”

Izuku nodded slowly. “I know how it feels to be angry about losing a parent.”

Mandalay put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “Thank you for being understanding. He just needs time to come to terms with it.”

Things settled down after that, and Aizawa finally gathered everyone together and gave them something to do. 

“You weren’t expected to arrive here as quickly as you did,” he said, looking at Hitoshi with a raised eyebrow. “So you didn’t get the workout I’d intended for you all for the first day. Instead, you’ll all hike up the mountain; no quirks allowed, except in an emergency. There is a trail to follow, so you shouldn’t get lost. Take water, a first aid kit and look out for snakes; there are mamushi in the area that like to hide in rocks. They’re extremely venomous, so if you see any snakes, keep clear. Get going.”

“Everyone, let’s meet back here in five minutes!” Iida called out, trying to organize them. “Don’t forget sunblock!”

Uraraka’s ankle had been wrapped, but Yaoyorozu made her a nice walking staff to help her on the trip. The hike was difficult, but enjoyable. Even Bakagou seemed to be in a good mood, going so far as to give Uraraka a hand up a particularly steep slope because of her ankle. When they reached the summit about two hours later, they could see the valley stretched out around them, and spotted another building on the opposite side that looked remarkably similar to the one that they were staying in.

“I’ll bet that’s where 1-B is staying,” Yaoyorozu surmised. “If you look closely, you can see lines through the trees where there are probably paths that lead to a central meeting spot and then to our camp.”

“Oh, yeah! I can see it!” Hagakura said. “Looks like there are all sorts of paths around here. I wonder if they rent these spaces out for things like this to other schools.”

They didn’t see any sign of the other class or movement near the other buildings, so they enjoyed the view for a little while before heading back down to their own camp. By the time they got back, they were tired, but happy. Aizawa appeared and told them they had two free hours before dinner, except for the remedial class students, who were rounded up and taken away with sad expressions, to a small room that had been converted into a small classroom for them.

Hitoshi approached Izuku, holding a cat in his arms that had extraordinarily large feet, and was enjoying the attention the teen was giving it. “Look what I found,” he said happily. “She has, like, six toes on each foot!”

The girls gathered around him to ooh and ah over the calico, while Kouda explained that cats that have been excessively inbred were often polydactyl. Izuku left them to it, and wandered up to the room where they would all sleep. It was a large space with futons for each of them laid out. They’d each taken a spot when they’d brought their bags up, but because Izuku had needed first aid, he simply took the last futon available. He fervently hoped he wasn’t next to Bakugou, and felt relieved to see Hitoshi’s bag directly in front of his.

Since the room was quiet and cool, Izuku decided to stretch out on his futon and write some notes about Pixie-Bob’s quirk. Having seen it first hand, he’d been impressed by her control of multiple earthen beasts at once and wondered what the limits of her power were. He never even noticed that his eyes were getting heavy or that he was dozing off until he woke to find Shouto sitting on the futon beside his, with a notebook of his own open in his lap. Shouto wasn’t looking at his notebook, however, but at Izuku.

“Hey,” Izuku said, feeling awkward. “I guess I was more tired than I thought.”

“You were murmuring in your sleep,” Shoto said with a tiny smile. 

“Sorry,” Izuku said, sitting up and stretching. His back still stung a little where the newly formed scabs pulled. “I didn’t mean to bother you.”

“It didn’t bother me, it was...” Shouto said, furrowing his brow as if searching for the right word. “Cute.”

Izuku could feel the heat surge into his cheeks in embarrassment and turned his head to presumably look for his notebook and pen so he could hide his face. “Er...where is everyone else?”

He had no idea how long he’d been napping, and it was very quiet in the room.

“They went off exploring,” he said, setting down his pen in favor of talking for the moment. “There’s also a zipline somewhere nearby, so some of them went looking for it.”

“You didn’t want to join them?” Izuku asked, noting that Shouto still seemed to keep himself apart from social interactions unless specifically invited. 

“I wanted to write my mother a letter,” he said, nodding to his notebook. “She said she wanted to know all about my week here.”

Izuku smiled at that; Shouto tended to take things literally, and was probably describing everything to her in detail. He glanced over and saw an intricate drawing of one of the earth beasts on Shouto’s notebook. “That’s an amazing drawing!”

The incredible amount of detail to the sketch put anything Izuku had ever drawn to shame, but Shouto just shrugged, cheeks turning a little pink. “My father didn’t like me to do what he called ‘all that art crap,’ but my tutor insisted that I needed some form of fine art class to meet the educational requirement, and it was either drawing or learning a musical instrument.”

“You father doesn’t strike me as the type to tolerate a child learning to play _kira, kira, boshi_ on a piano or violin.” Izuku joked.

“Not really, no,” Shouto smirked. “He made it clear he thought it was a waste of time, so I don’t get to do it very often, but it’s relaxing when I do.”

“You’ve got real talent,” Izuku said admiringly. “Do you have anything else you’ve drawn?”

“...” Shouto didn’t quite make eye contact for a moment and said, “Not really.”

“So you’re drawing that for your mom, to show her the sort of thing we had to fight?” Izuku scooted a bit closer, to get a better look at the drawing.

“Yeah. I thought it would be easier to show her than to try to describe it in words.” Shout looked down at his drawing and furrowed his brow. “You really think it’s good?”

“It’s not just good, it’s amazing. Really. I’m always trying to draw pictures of heroes and their gear for my hero notebooks, but they look like cartoons next to this.” Izuku held up the spread he was working on when he’d fallen asleep, with a rough sketch of Pixie-Bob on one side and impressions about her quirk on the other. “I mean, this is just a quick sketch, but the finished product isn’t really all that much better.”

Shouto took the offered notebook and examined it for a moment before he nodded. “It’s not bad, though. I can definitely tell who it is at just a glance.” He kept studying the page for a few moments more. “Your observations about her quirk are really interesting. I always see you taking notes, but I guess I never thought about what you did with them.” He flipped a page backward to where there was an entry on Termite, the sidekick from his father’s agency that they’d trained with. “This is really detailed.”

“I’ve been interested in quirks and how they work since I was little,” Izuku told him, leaning forward to flip the notebook so that the cover was revealed. The title of this one was: _Hero and Quirk Analysis Notebook No. 15_ “I started writing down everything I observed as soon as I was able to hold a pencil. Obviously the earliest ones are pretty silly, but… I just really love heroes and quirks.”

“Is it okay for me to look through this?” Shouto asked, turning back to the entry on Termite. “It’s interesting. If you don’t mind, that is.”

“I guess so,” Izuku said, feeling shy. “I don’t think anyone has ever wanted to, before.”

They had their heads bent together, looking at his page on Endeavor and Shouto was pointing out one of the observations, when Hitoshi walked into the room (still holding the cat) and said, “Oops! Didn’t mean to ruin a moment. Bye.” Then he turned on his heel and walked right back out again.

Izuku thought his face might actually _catch fire_ as he stared after his best friend. “I’m going to kill him later,” he told Shouto without thinking.

“I think I must have missed something,” Shouto said uncertainty

“No, you didn’t. He’ just being an ass,” Izuku assured him quickly. 

“Do you need to go after him? Will he be upset?” Shouto asked.

“Huh? Why?” Izuku asked, truly bewildered.

“Isn’t he your boyfriend?” Shouto asked, looking at him like it was obvious.

“My _what?_ No! Why would you think he’s my boyfriend? I mean, we’re best friends, but…” Izuku wondered wildly how Shouto could have possibly gotten the idea that he and Hitoshi were romantically involved.

“Bakugou called him your boyfriend. On the first day of school.” Shouto pointed out logically.

Izuku’s mind rewound back to the first day of school, and he remembered Bakugou’s reaction to Hitoshi being added to their class. _”So your little boyfriend gets to take Grapehead’s place?” _ Izuku groaned and covered his face with his hands. 

“That was just Bakugou being an asshole and trying to insult me and Tosh,” he said with a big sigh. “Hitoshi has never been my boyfriend...I don’t even think he’s into guys; I’m pretty sure he likes girls.”

“Sorry, I get told I take things too seriously sometimes,” Shouto said, managing to sound a little sheepish. “I don’t really have a lot of practice being around other people, so I’m not very good at reading them.”

“I think you’re doing okay...except for listening to Bakugou about anything. You can always ask, if you’re not sure if someone is being serious or not,” Izuku comforted.

“Thanks. I’ll remember that,” he said wryly. 

“Hey, is Shinsou in here…?” Uraraka came walking in, and paused when she saw them. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to interrupt you guys.”

“It’s fine. Tosh was just here, but left again. Did you need something?” Izuku said, resigned to the fact that his alone time with Shouto was at an end.

“I was just going to tell him that Aizawa was looking for him.”

“Aizawa? Is the remedial class over already?” Izuku wondered how long he’d been asleep.

“It just ended. It’ll be time for dinner in about twenty minutes.” She smiled at both of them and gave them a little wave before bouncing off.

“I guess I’d better go see what Tosh wanted,” Izuku said before he could die of embarrassment. Why did they think they were interrupting something? He wasn’t sitting _that_ close to Shouto.

“Okay. I’m going to wash up for dinner,” Shouto said, tucking his notebook back in his bag. 

Izuku took off down the hallway and found Tosh sitting at the bottom of the stairs. “What the hell, Tosh?” he asked, smacking him on the back of the head as he took a seat beside him.

“What? I said is was sorry for interrupting you and _ Shoooutoooo_! Did you make any progress? Did you tell him you like him?”

Izuku punched him in the arm hard enough to make Hitoshi wince even as he laughed at his friend’s discomfiture. 

“Deku likes Todoroki?” Uraraka asked as he appeared on the steps behind them. “That’s so cute!”

“Gods, please kill me now,” Izuku groaned, putting his face in his hands and rubbing furiously.

“He says he’s not sure if he does,” Hitoshi shared. “But it’s totally obvious.”

Uraraka gave a girly squeal and shook Izuku excitedly by the shoulders. “You should tell him!”

“Guys. Please. I’m begging you,” Izuku whined. “Stop. Just...stop.”

“Look how red his ears are!” Uraraka cooed, making Hitoshi laugh.

“Don’t gang up on me! I admit, it, okay? I think I like him...just...leave it alone. He might not even be into guys. Just a minute ago, he thought that _Tosh_ was my boyfriend.”

Hitoshi screwed up his face at that. “Ew! That’d be weird! Why the hell would he think that?”

“Well, you two do spend a ton of time together outside of school, and you’re super close. I could see how it could look that way.” Uraraka grinned at how stunned Hitoshi now looked.

“He heard Bakugou call him ‘_my little boyfriend_ on the first day of school and took it literally,” Izuku explained.

“Ahhh,” Uraraka and Hitoshi said in unison.

“That would explain it. Todoroki-kun does seem to take everything at face value,” Uraraka mused. 

“DINNER’S READY!” came Kirishima’s shout through the front door. “COME AND GET IT!”

Dinner was a lively time, with everyone having worked up a huge appetite. Mounds of food disappeared quickly, even as Mandalay told them they would be responsible for making their own food after this meal. They were allowed to have a campfire in the courtyard (that Todoroki lit when asked) after helping to clear and wash up the dishes, and Aizawa warned them not to stay out too late.

“Tomorrow is going to be hell,” he told them bluntly. “You’re going to want to be well rested, or you’ll be sorry.”

Iida took his instructions to heart, and made sure to extinguish the fire after an hour, and shoo them all inside for their baths. It was hard to complain about that, though, when their accommodations included an onsen to soak their sore muscles. Izuku sank gratefully into the water, hissing a bit at the heat on his abraded back. Hitoshi sank in to sit near him on one side, and Iida on the other. They talked quietly until Kaminari realized that the girls’ baths were on the other side of the tall wooden privacy wall.

“Do you think they’re using the same water we’re using?” He speculated.

Bakugou rolled his eyes, “Why the hell would it matter?”

“They’re _naked_ over there!” Kaminari said, as if that was a meaningful answer.

“And we’re naked over here. So what?” Bakugou griped.

“Dude! I don’t wanna see a bunch of other naked men, but I wouldn’t mind getting a peek at some naked women!” Kaminari said with a mischievous look “I wonder how hard it’d be to climb this wall.”

“Don’t even think about it, assface!” Kota called from the top of the wall, where no one had seen him a moment ago.

“You tell ‘em, Kota!” Mina called from the other side.

“Thanks, Kota!” Uraraka said.

Kota looked over his shoulder, stumbled backward in shock, and was falling in an instant. Izuku didn’t even remember deciding to move before he was across the onsen and catching the boy in his arms before he hit the ground. Kota wasn’t conscious; he seemed to have fainted from the shock. 

“I’ll take him to Mandalay,” he said to the others, who were looking at them in alarm.

“You should probably cover your junk, first,” Sero suggested.

“Oh. Yeah. Uh…” he looked down at Kota. “Would anyone be willing to…”

“Fuck no!” Bakugou said before Izuku could even finish asking for help.

“Pass,” Sero said, holding up his hands. 

“I got it,” Shouto offered, standing and tying his own towel around his waist before picking up another from a stack of folded ones nearby. He didn’t make a big deal of it, wrapping his arms around Izuku to get the towel fastened at his hip. 

“Thanks,” Izuku said in a strangled voice, glad that the onsen was dimly lit to hide his blush. He hadn’t really meant to look, but when Shouto had stood in the water, he couldn’t help but notice that the hair on his head wasn’t the only bi-colored hair on his body. His gaze flew to Hitoshi, who was looking at him with glee. “I...I’ll just...take him inside, now.”

He turned and fled, holding Kota firmly in his arms until he reached Mandalay, who led him to her quarters. 

“Just lay him down on the couch. The poor kid probably got a shock from suddenly falling,” she said, placing a cool washcloth on his Kota’s forehead. “He tries to act tough, but he’s still only five.”

“He really doesn’t like heroes, huh?” Izuku asked cautiously. “I grew up dreaming about being one, and our society is so dependent on them, it just seems out of the ordinary to find a kid that dislikes them.”

“He didn’t always,” Mandalay said. “He’s my cousin’s child, and she and her husband were pro heroes who died in the line of duty.”

Pixie-Bob came in, carrying a tray with tea and added, “Everyone applauded them for being so brave and giving their lives to protect a civilian from a villain. They called it an honorable death and said that there was no better way for a hero to die.”

Izuku winced, thinking of Gran’s words about most heroes not living to see old age. “Ouch.”

“Yes,” Mandalay agreed, seeing that Izuku understood. “His parents were his whole world, and to hear others talk about how great their death was made him angry and confused. To be honest, I don’t think he likes us much, but doesn’t have anywhere else he can go except for an orphanage. We’re at least preferable to that, so I suppose that’s something.”

“Thank you for saving him, Midoriya-kun, but you should probably go put some clothes on and get some sleep, now.” Pixie-Bob suggested.

Izuku blushed and bowed slightly, having forgotten that he was only wearing a towel. “Good night, then.”

He hurried back to the bathing area to retrieve his things and saw that only a couple of his classmates were still soaking. Even having taken a nap earlier, he was feeling tired, so he went to the boys’ room and changed into sleep shorts and a tee shirt. He turned down offers to play cards or tell creepy stories and laid down on his futon. Shouto was nowhere to be seen, and Hitoshi was playing cards, so Izuku turned on his side and quickly fell asleep.

In the morning, Izuku was up before the sun and left his classmates sprawled around the room as though they’d been tossed around in a storm during the night. It seemed that most of them hadn’t heeded Aizawa’s warning to get a good night’s sleep. Shouto was sleeping peacefully in his futon, Hitoshi had brought the polydactyl cat in to sleep with them, and Iida had been sleeping almost stiffly on his spot near the door. 

Izuku dressed quietly and went down to the outdoor kitchen area to find it deserted. He went through his normal routine of stretching before going to look for food. The Pussycats had told them that they wouldn’t be pampered, and that they would be responsible for their own meals. The kitchen yielded up fruit, so izuku helped himself to a banana and a protein bar from a large box of them in the pantry. He was just sitting down with his modest breakfast when Shouto appeared, also dressed for the day.

“There’s fruit and stuff in the kitchen,” izuku told him by way of greeting. “I think we’re the first ones up.”

Shouto nodded and disappeared inside for a couple of minutes, then joined Izuku at the table with a similar breakfast.

“I didn’t think any of you would be up, yet!” a cheerful voice called to them as a car pulled up. The voice belonged to Ragdoll, another of the Pussycats, who was leaning out the window of the vehicle. 

“It’s Ragdoll and Tiger, the other two members of the Wild, Wild Pusscats!” Izuku told Todoroki excitedly.

“I can see that,” Todoroki said, almost indulgently. He seemed to be getting used to Izuku’s outbursts and fanboy-ing.

“”Ragdoll’s quirk is so amazing! It’s called _search_ and she can monitor up to a hundred people’s locations _and their weaknesses!_ That’s so cool!”

“My! Someone’s done their homework!” the woman in question said cheerfully as she approached. “Your sensei has gone to wake the others; it’s time to get this show started!”

A huge, muscular man wearing a Pussycats costume (Including the skirt) sat at the table with the boys. Even his face had a heavy cat-like lip, though there was nothing delicate about him. 

“Tiger!” Izuku smiled brightly, “Your quirk is _Pliabody_! You can flatten or stretch your body at will, giving you superhuman flexibility!”

“That’s what they tell me,” the man said easily enough. “And you two are?”

“Oh! Sorry! I’m Midoriya Izuku!” Midorya dipped his head respectfully. 

“Todoroki Shouto.” He also dipped his head slightly, then took the last bite of his banana and tore open the protein bar.

“Midoriya, huh?” Tiger said, sizing him up. “You’re gonna be one of _my_ kittens, today! I’m gonna push you to your breaking point, so I hope you’re ready!”

“The rest of the kids are up,” Mandalay called to them. “Come gather in the front.”

All of them walked around the side of the building to find the rest of class 1-A blearily standing in a group, all of them but Iida and Bakugou with bed-head and bags under their eyes...well...Hitoshi always looked like that, but the rest looked very tired.

“Morning, kids. Today, the _real_ training camp begins. Ideally, you’ll become strong enough by the end to acquire your provisional licenses.” Aizawa told them.

“I thought we didn’t do that until the second or third year?” Kaminari said.

“Circumstances may have changed, the staff are still debating. The hero killer has been caught, but now we’ve got this _League of Villains_ forming - who have shown an express interest in at least two from this class. There are also all sorts of copycat villains out there looking to capitalize on Stain’s notoriety. With provisional licenses, you’ll be in a better position to legally defend yourselves, should you get into a dangerous situation.”

Aizawa took out a familiar looking object and tossed it to Bakugou. 

“This is the ball we used from the assessment test on the first day,” Bakugou said, examining it.

“Correct. Last time, your record was 705.2 meters. Try throwing it again.” 

“Ah! To measure how much stronger he’s gotten!” Kirishima guessed as Bakugou stretched and prepared to throw.

“We’ve been through a ton of training in the past three months! I’ll bet he can throw it a whole kilometer by now!” Sero enthused. “Throw that sucker!”

Bakugou wound up the pitch and let it fly with a shouted, “GO. TO._ HELL_!” 

They all watched it disappear from sight and looked to Aizawa who showed them the screen of his phone.

709.6 Meters

“That’s it? Are you kidding me?” Bakugou asked incredulously.

“That’s not that much father at all,” Sero said thoughtfully.

“You all _have_ been through a lot in the past three months, but it’s only your techniques and your experience that’s gotten so much better; your bodies have only gotten a _little_ bit stronger,” their teacher pointed out. “But as you’ve just witnessed, your quirks haven’t kept pace with the rest of you. This training is going to break you down to the point that you’ll wish you were dead, but in the end, your quirks will improve like your muscles do...the more you use them, the stronger you get. That means pushing you past your current limits.”

“But Sensei, _kero_, we all have pretty unique quirks, and there are twenty of us. How are we each going to do this?” Asui asked.

“We’ve got it covered,” Aizawa assured her. “All you’ve got to do is push through your limits, and like your muscles, where the fibers will tear themselves apart and recover thicker and stronger than before, you quirks will do the same. It’s time to get to it.”

Izuku was impressed with the set-up, to say the least. Every type of quirk had been taken into account, and an exercise set up to challenge it. Emitter and operative types like Aoyama, Kaminari, Bakugou and Todoroki who had maximum output levels needed to push past their limits with exercises that used their output continuously. Each was set up in a different location, with plenty of room to let loose in. 

Metamorphic and composite type quirks like Shoji, Asui, Ojiro and Tokoyami needed to gain better, more precise control of their appendages

Each student had a task designed specifically for them, and Izuku would have been taking notes like crazy, if Tiger hadn’t been busy trying to beat him to a pulp. The exercises designed for him were pretty old school: calisthenics and strength moves that would have been strenuous at the pace Tiger set, but were torturous while wearing the wrist weights that the teachers had worn during their final exams, and then on top of that, ankle weights to distribute it evenly. Izuku’s had been adjusted to weigh one-eighth of his body weight, each, and he felt slow and well...heavy. 

While he was struggling with one legged squats, Izuku noted that class 1-B had arrived, and they looked horrified by the scene before them, as well they should be. Izuku could see it dawning on them all that _this_ was what they would be facing in only moments. Tiger went over to the group, along with the rest of the Pussycats, to explain their part in the training camp. Mandalay would use _Telepath_ to communicate with students individually or as a whole, Pixie-Bob would create ideal workout conditions with her _Earth Flow_, Ragdoll would use her _Search_ to keep track of them all and spot their weak points so that they could be strengthened, and Tiger was there to beat them all into shape: literally.

Soon Izuku had others working out with him under the direct tutelage of Tiger, who would suddenly pounce or demand they attack him at any given time. Needless to say, they didn’t land a hit very often; Izuku was forcibly reminded of his early training with Gran. All Might had given him the power, Gran had taught him to use it and now it was up to him to strengthen it. 

From where he was doing handstand pushups, he had a clear (upside down) view of Shouto, submerged to his chest in a vat of steaming water. It was already a hot day, and Izuku knew that it must be uncomfortable. Shouto’s task was to keep the water hot at a consistent temperature with the left side of his quirk, while still producing ice with the right side. The goal of this exercise was to help him use both quirks simultaneously at any time, and control the temperature of his flames with a mere thought.

Tiger moved them into chinups, which would have been fine, except that he was able to adjust the weights they were each wearing to shift the load from wrists to ankles so that Izuku was hefting an extra half his body weight from his legs. He resolved to send thank you gifts to all of his former teachers in gymnastics, boxing, MMA and any other sport he had played when this was done. The other two training with him had less balance than he did, and struggled more as a result. Bakugou could be heard nearby, setting off regular explosions, and screaming out profanities with each one. Uraraka was floating around, looking distinctly green in the face, and Izuku could just make out the form of Kaminari at the top of a pillar of earth, powering a generator with his quirk.

“Pay attention, kid!” Tiger roared.

Izuku had just enough time to dodge by swinging himself up into a handstand on the chin up bar before Tiger’s kick swung out and hit the student next to where Izuku had been a moment ago. Izuku winced as Kaibara took the brunt of the kick and went flying into Shinshida, who growled like the beast his quirk allowed him to transform into. 

The whole day went like that; running, intense calisthenics and sparring again and and again and again, with minimal break times for hydration and lunches that consisted of protein bars, fruit and yogurt. 

By the time four o’clock rolled around, the students were completely wrung out and ready to collapse.

“Well, that was a decent start, I suppose,” Tiger told Izuku as he released the weights from his arms and legs. The sudden lack of weight made Izuku feel like Uraraka had used her quirk on him suddenly, like he might float away without them as an anchor. 

They all stumbled back to camp, to find Ragdoll and Pixie-Bob standing in front of a table piled high with potatoes, onions, carrots and other ingredients.

“Welcome back, kittens!” Ragdoll greeted them with great energy. 

“Like we told you yesterday, there will be no more pampering!” Pixie-Bob announced as if it were great news.

“You wanna eat? You gotta make it yourselves! Today, it’s curry!” Ragdoll said with an almost manic laugh.

“Yeeeeeesss Maaaa’aaam,” they all groaned.

“You all look way worse for wear! This isn’t kitty chow you’re making, you know!” Pixie-Bob told them with a raucous laugh.

“Of course!” Iida said, as if having an epiphany. “What better way to soothe frayed nerves and feed the souls of those fatigued and plagued by disaster and evacuation than with a comforting meal? This, too, is a part of hero work!”

None of the staff said anything about his summation of the task ahead, so Iida took it as a confirmation.

“Leave it to Yuuei to never miss out on a teaching opportunity!” he announced with fire in his tone. “Let’s make the most delicious curry in the world, everyone!”

Izuku smiled tiredly when a few of his classmates cheered at the pep talk, and everyone moved forward to lend a hand in making dinner. Todoroki helped light the fires under the pots, Bakugou turned out to have real skill in cutting vegetables, and Izuku diced meat and cooked it with the help of Shouji, who worked twice as fast, with two sets of hands. Every took part and then sat down to eat with great gusto. Spirits and bodies seemed to rejuvenate with good food in their stomachs. 

They talked about the trials of the day, with Hitoshi trying to push others to do things that would ordinarily be beyond them and trying to control two people at once. Sero had been been producing hundreds of meters of tape, struggling to keep its consistency strong and not lose speed. Ashido had been working up a tolerance to her own acid and trying to intensify its effectiveness. All of them had horror stories to tell, with the others trying to top it.

As Izuku was about to go back for seconds on his rice, he noticed Kouta slip away without eating. Grabbing a fresh plate, he filled it with rice and curry and followed after the boy, intent on at least getting him to eat something. He followed a small desire path that the boy had probably made on frequent trips to his ‘secret base’. The trail wasn’t a difficult one, and wound easily to a cliff that made a great lookout over the treetops. It was still within sight of the camp, but the forest canopy obscured the ground and gave one the illusion of being alone, even though there were people a couple of hundred meters away. He found Kouta crouched near a shallow cave that offered little protection, drawing in the dirt with a stick and muttering to himself.

“Kouta? Sorry to bother you up here, but…” Izuku began.

Kouta spun to glare at him with all of the venom a five year old could muster. “How’d you find this place?” he demanded angrily. 

“I just followed you,” Izuku said quietly. “I brought you a plate. I thought you might like some food. It’s curry.”

“No! I don’t want anything to do with any of you people! Heroes are gross and so is your food!” Kouta shouted at him, even as his stomach betrayed him with a loud gurgle. “Get away from my secret base!”

“Secret base, huh? I always wanted a secret base as a kid,” Izuku said easily. “A place to go and be alone and feel sorry for myself.”

Kouta growled at him angrily. “What do you know? Improving your quirks, stretching your limits! It’s gross! It’s worthless! Flaunting your power like it’s special!”

“Your parents were the Water Hose Duo, weren’t they?” Izuku asked quietly, advancing and setting the plate of food down not far from the boy. 

“How? Who? Who told you that?” Kouta demanded with a stamp of his foot.

“When Mandalay told me about your parent’s dying, I figured it out myself,” Izuku said softly. “I’m sorry. I remember when it happened. It was terrible.”

“SHUT UP!” Kouta shouted with tears in his eyes. “It’s stupid! Going around calling yourselves heroes and villains! Killing each other like idiots! Showing off your quirks just so you can be famous!”

“It might seem that way,” Izuku said evenly. “But not everyone is like that. I can’t say I know how you feel, because no one can know that. I can tell you, though, that my own mom died because of a hero showing off.”

Kouta stared at him blankly for a moment, clearly at a loss. 

“My mom wasn’t a hero to anyone but me, but she was...everything,” Izuku said. “I was angry too, for a long time. But that only made me more determined to be the kind of hero that wouldn’t let that kind of thing happen again. It’s okay to be angry, but if you shut everyone out, you’ll regret it in the end. You don’t have to go through all of this by yourself.”

“You’re crazy,” Kouta grunted, less aggressively than before. “If you’re done, get out of here, already.”

Izuku nodded, and turned to go. “I know you don’t like heroes, but if you want to talk about it, I’d listen.” When the boy said nothing, he capitulated. “I’ll go, but please eat something.”

Izuku went back to camp in time to help clean up. When Mandalay started asking if anyone had seen Kouta, he told her that he’d seen him and that he’d taken him some food. She seemed relieved, and let it go at that.

That night, all of them slept deeply, and for the first time in a long time, Izuku did not wake before sunrise. They were allowed to sleep until seven, but were put immediately to work with more of the same as the day before. The remedial group looked the roughest, having had classes until two in the morning, and were being scolded by Aizawa for being sluggish.

The rest of them weren’t much better off, with painful muscles that the onsen hadn’t managed to soak away. By the time they were finished with the day’s training, making huge pots of stew had been a herculean chore, but they’d managed it, and felt better with nourishment to help fuel them.

“Since you’ve all been working so hard, _mew, mew_,” Pixie-Bob announced when the plates were cleared away, “you get to play hard and have a little fun, tonight! We’re going to be having a test of courage! Where the classes take turns scaring each other!”

“Yes!” Ashido cried, punching the air in excitement. “Test of courage! THIS is what camp is all about!”

“A mad banquet of darkness,” Tokoyami muttered mysteriously, making Izuku take a cautious step away from him. 

“Sorry to break it to you, remedial group,” Aizawa said dryly, “But you five are going to be in extra lessons with me, starting now.”

“No way!” Ashido wailed, even as she was wrapped in her teacher’s capture weapon. 

“Sorry, not sorry. You all were slacking during training, so now I’m cutting into your playtime.”

Izuku felt intense pity as they were dragged away, literally kicking and screaming in protest.

“Right!” Pixie-Bob said as the others were dragged away. “Now, class B will be the scarers first. They are already positioning themselves along the path that loops back to this location. They’ll be using their quirks to try and make you pee your pants!”

“Ew. Gross,” Jiro muttered. “I don’t like scary stuff.”

“You’ll draw numbers and be sent in pairs every three minutes,” Ragdoll explained. “When you reach the halfway point, you’ll find name cards. Grab yours and bring it back here as proof that you made it!”

“But there is an odd number of us, _kero_.” Asui pointed out.

“One lucky person will have to go it alone!” Pixie-Bob told them enthusiastically, as though it was a huge treat to be the odd man out.

“A mad banquet of darkness,” Tokoyami muttered quietly.

Uraraka edged over to Izuku. “He’s been saying that a lot. He’s starting to freak me out.”

In the end, Izuku ended up without a partner, and it was decided that he would go last. Pairs were sent in, and twelve minutes later, Uraraka and Asui entered the forest, holding hands. Izuku and the remaining pairs were waiting for their turns when things turned bad. 

“Hey,” Pixie-bob said, suddenly turning serious. “What’s that burning smell?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is a bit later than expected. I woke up at three this morning with the mother of all migraines that sent me to the ER to get knocked out. I feel great, now, but it was a rough few hours. Anyway, I hope you all are having (or had) a great, safe Halloween!


	21. Side story/chapter - Shouto's feelings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shouto works some things out with his counselor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know where this one came from, except that I was going through a depressive episode and wanted to write some fluff...and this came out instead. As usual, it's un-betaed. Take it, it's yours, now.
> 
> EDIT: HA! I just realized that there are some HUGE spoilers for coming chapters, because...of reasons. I was going to take it down, but instead, I'll just warn you that this probably shouldn't have been posted for another two chapters, so read at your own risk. If you continue with reading this, I hope you like this preview of what's to come? (It's been a long week.)

“You look like you have something on your mind,” Koizumi-san said as Shouto sat in the comfortable chair across from her. 

She never sat behind her desk during their sessions, and instead took the opposite chair, so it was more like a conversation with a friend than a meeting with a counsellor. Shouto liked her. She had a way of making him feel at ease, and didn’t make him talk about anything he wasn’t ready to talk about. She let him set the pace of their conversations, and didn’t press too much beyond clarifying questions. 

His first meeting with her had been...difficult. Midoriya had come with him, and it had helped to have him as a buffer. He’d kept quiet unless spoken to directly, and sat as a comforting presence as Shouto explained his difficult home situation and the revelation that his eldest brother was alive. It had been a long session, not just because of the weighty subject matter, but because it took him a while to sort out what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it. He wasn’t used to people asking his opinion, instead of just telling him what he should think and feel. 

He’d gradually gotten everything immediate out of his system, and had left the appointment feeling lighter in spirit. Izuku had stayed by his side even afterward, making small talk on the way back to the dorms, then inviting him to play a video game involving very pixelated characters that dug up resources to build other things. It was...soothing.

Today, however, Shouto was at his session alone, and feeling somewhat conflicted. Koizumi sat and waited for him to gather his thoughts, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. Rather, it was an uncomfortable topic for him.

“I think,” Shouto began, leaning forward in his seat and resting his elbows on his knees. “I think I have feelings for Izuku.”

“Romantic feelings?”

“I guess.” He didn’t have any experience in such things, so he wasn’t sure.

“He’s the young man that accompanied you to your first visit. Does the idea of having feelings for him trouble you?”

“Yes.”

She waited to see if he would elaborate on his answer, but he seemed to be lost in his own thoughts. 

“Do you want to talk about why it troubles you?” she prompted.

“That’s the problem. I’m not sure,” Shouto said with a small sigh. “There are a lot of reasons it would be a bad idea to allow myself to like him that way.”

“Him in particular, or just having feelings for anyone?”

“Both, but him in particular,” Shouto admitted. “I’m… kind of a mess, right now.”

“What are some of the reasons?” she asked without judgement.

“My father would be furious, for one. That might count as a plus, though. His plan for my life definitely doesn’t include a relationship with...with...someone he didn’t pick out.” Shouto said. 

“Someone he didn’t pick out, or someone of the same gender?” Again, her voice was steady and non-judgemental.

“Both,” he answered after a moment, “But I guess I’m more worried about the second one.”

“Worried about it, how?”

“I’m expected to carry on the family name and help produce the next in a long, strong line of Todoroki heirs. That’s not exactly possible with another man for a partner.”

“What else?”

“My father would see it as a weakness. He… might have had feelings for my mother once, or at least some sort of affection, but I never saw it. He expects everyone to just fall into line with his plans.”

“What about your own expectations for your life?” she asked, with a little head tilt. “You’ve given me reasons for why your father would think having feelings for someone else would be a bad idea. What about Shouto?”

“Huh,” Shouto said, as if agreeing that she’d caught him avoiding looking at the perceived problem directly. “I guess… I don’t know what my own expectations are, anymore. Meeting Izuku and the rest of my classmates has changed everything I thought I knew about the world and how I’ve been seeing it.”

“Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?”

“Definitely a good thing,” Shouto answered immediately. “I just didn’t realize how narrow my father’s views were, until I was out from under his thumb. I still want to be a hero; I want to be the best I can be. But being the best out of _anyone and everyone_ doesn’t seem as important, as long as I can reach my potential.”

“Good. So, if you understand that what you want is different than what your father wants for you, then let’s go back and revisit the original question. What are some reasons that having feelings for another person are a bad idea for you? Are you truly worried about gender, or are you worried about the reaction others might have to you liking someone of the same gender?”

“I… I don’t know,” Shouto said quietly, almost more to himself. “I think maybe… what I’m really worried about is that _he_ might be the one with the problem with it.”

“That’s fair. Setting that aside for a moment, what are some other reasons that it might be a bad idea for you to have feelings for him?” she asked, not pressing the matter further for the moment.

It didn’t escape Shouto’s notice that she switched from using a general term like, ‘having feelings for _someone_’ to the term, ‘having feelings for _him_.’ He wasn’t fooling anyone by saying he had anyone other than Izuku in mind. He’d never felt conflicted in his feelings for anyone else in this way.

“At the risk of going back to what my father would say, liking someone could make me - or him - lose focus. We’re both at this school to train and learn; isn’t anything that might detract from that basically wrong?”

“Is it? Do you think that the other students who have interests outside of academics and training are somehow missing out, or losing something from other types of personal enrichment?” she asked. 

“I suppose it depends,” Shouto hedged.

“On?”

“On how much they choose to invest in it?” he said, though it was almost a question.

“Perhaps,” she allowed. “Can you think of any specific examples of one of your classmates or other students that have allowed their feelings for something or someone else hamper their success at school?”

“Bakugou,” Shouto said instantly, the word itself making his mouth twist with derision.

“Can you elaborate?”

“He’s always angry, and his anger can make him sloppy when it’s personal...and Izuku seems to make him the most angry. They knew each other when they were little kids.”

“Izuku makes Bakugou angry, and his anger hurts his performance at school,” she said for clarification. “So there are strong feelings, there.”

“Yes. They’ve been kind of bitter rivals since the beginning of school, because Bakugou can’t seem to let it go.”

“And Izuku? Does he have strong feelings about it that also harm _his_ performance?” she asked.

Shouto took a moment to consider it before furrowing his brow. “I would have said yes a month or two ago,” he said. “In spite of the fact that Bakugou is a jerk that abused Izuku when they were kids, Izuku always admired him for his quirk and confidence - until something made that reach a breaking point, I guess. But, somewhere along the way, Izuku became more focused and… I don’t know. Maybe he found something more important to focus on, or just realized that he didn’t have to be the victim to Bakugou’s bullying, anymore. Now he seems to use those feelings to move forward, like a goal he wants to achieve. Izuku is just a better person, and a better hero than Bakugou. Maybe he realized it.”

“Impressive. You’re saying he took his personal feelings, that had once held him back, and used them as a springboard to move forward, instead?”

“Exactly,” Shouto said, pleased that he’d made his point clear. Then… “Oh.”

She actually chuckled, then. “You see it, then?”

“I see it,” he said with an embarrassed shake of his head. “They both approached the same problem in a different way.”

“And that’s what determined their success for failure,” she finished with a gentle smile.

“I guess you’re right,” Shouto admitted.

“So, now that we’ve talked about that, let’s go back to any other reasons you can think of that liking Izuku might be a bad idea.”

“Besides him maybe not returning my feelings?” Shouto asked, sounding a little lost. “I’m not even really sure if what I’m feeling is really...liking him, or just admiration.”

“We can talk about that,” she said. “I already know a little, from what we’ve discussed in past sessions. You brought him with you to your first one because he helped you feel calmer, and,” she looked at the notes on her clipboard, “organize your thoughts better.”

Shouto nodded, trying not to be too embarrassed. He’d been very nervous about seeing a counsellor at first, though he had come to be comfortable with it pretty quickly. “He told me he’d been seeing someone for years, and I guess that gave me the courage to agree to it for myself.”

“He seems to have a lot of empathy,” Koizumi observed. “Has he ever given you any reason to think that he would find your feelings… unwanted?”

“No,” Shouto was able to answer that much easily. “But that’s different than welcoming them.”

“That’s true. Is there any reason you think he might not welcome them?”

“So many,” Shouto muttered, raking a hand through his hair in frustration. “I mean, he’s like...the sun, or something. It’s like he radiates this inner light, and it’s so _bright_. He’s nice to everyone, and always willing to lend a hand. I can’t tell if some of the things he does is just because of me, or if he’d do them for anyone, because that’s the type of person he is.”

“I see,” she said. 

If Shouto didn’t know better, he would have almost sworn he’d seen her smile before clearing her throat behind her hand.

“Like what?” She pressed, composing her features to something more neutral.

“He broke all the bones in his hands, just to get me to use my fire,” Shouto said, looking at her with an expression of both disbelief and admiration at the memory.. “Even though he knew that if I did use my fire, he’d probably lose the Sports Festival.”

“I saw that on televisioin,” she said with a nod. “That was before you two even really knew anything about each other. What do you think prompted him to do that?”

“Pity?” Shouto guessed with a small voice.

“How so?”

This time, Shouto took a deep breath and sat up straight. “He knew about my father, and how my mother broke and burned me, and just...why I refused to use my fire. I think he must have felt sorry for me, and wanted to help.”

“By breaking all of the bones in his hands?” she quirked an eyebrow at that. “That seems a bit...extra.”

Shouto actually snorted at that. “He does seem to have a reckless streak, sometimes. He doesn’t think twice about putting himself in harm’s way to save someone else.”

“That isn’t always a good thing,” Koizumi said. “But I don’t think it was pity that drove him to help you. From what you’ve told me during our meetings, he just sounds like a genuinely nice and generous person.”

“Yeah,” Shouto said fondly. 

“Alright, has he ever given you any sign that your feelings may be reciprocated?” she asked. “Or particular instances that you felt that you were becoming closer than a situation might warrant?”

“Maybe?” Shouto sounded unsure. “I’m not really good at reading social situations.”

“Tell me about one, and we’ll see what we can make of it,” she suggested.

“The day we moved into the dormitories,” Shouto recalled, “he helped me lay down tatami mats and get my room in order. He could have helped anyone, or just helped me for a little while, then gone to help others, but he stayed the whole time, until it was finished. It was...nice. Fun.”

“That sounds like it was a big job,” was all she said. “What else?”

“After everyone finished unpacking and decorating their rooms, we were sitting in the common area, and he was feeling sore. Hitoshi asked if anyone had a heating pad Izuku could borrow, and Uraraka pointed out that I could be a substitute. He sat next to me and leaned against my left side, and I warmed up for him.”

“How did that make you feel?” She was smiling at the image as she asked.

“Happy, I think. It was nice to help him, when I feel like he’s always helping me. He fell asleep while leaning on me.” Shouto recalled the warm feeling in his chest that had nothing to do with the heat he was generating with his quirk. He’d wanted to put an arm around Izuku when he’d nodded off, but had worried that it would seem too familiar at the time, so he sat contentedly, watching him sleep.

“You’re smiling,” Koizumi pointed out. “Do you think he would have been comfortable enough to trust and relax that much with any of the other students?”

“I don’t think so… maybe Hitoshi, but they’ve been best friends since elementary school. I actually thought that they were a couple until training camp.” Shouto said. “I was kind of relieved when I found out they weren’t.”

He relayed the story about how he’d misunderstood Bakugou’s words on the first day of school, and how Izuku had set him straight on the subject.

“He told you he didn’t think Hitoshi was into guys?” she asked.

“That’s what he said,” Shouto said. “It made me wonder.”

“Wonder what?”

“If that meant that Izuku _is_ into guys. He didn’t say, ‘_neither of us are into guys._’ when he was talking about it. It seemed odd at the time, and he seemed a little...embarrassed, maybe?”

Shouto reached for the water she always had on hand and took a sip. He wasn’t used to talking this much at one time, and had been amazed to find that he didn’t mind it.

“Can I bring this back around to what we were talking about before, with gender?” Koizumi asked. “I think we’ve established that you’re not repelled by the idea of liking someone of the same gender or, at least, this particular person of the same gender. The idea of physical contact doesn’t make you uncomfortable. Correct?”

“I guess… yes. I haven’t ever felt attracted to anyone else like this,” Shouto said. And it _was_ attraction, he realized. He found himself wanting to be physically near Izuku, even when a situation didn’t warrant close contact. He also realized that he’d been subconsciously looking for excuses to be near him or touch him, in small ways. 

He thought about the scene in the onsen, when he’d helped Izuku tie the towel around his waist and blushed at the memory. He’d thought at the time that everyone there could hear his heart beating, but he hadn’t dared pass up the opportunity to ‘help’ his friend when others had been hesitant. It had been sort of a test for himself to see if he felt a physical reaction to being that close to the object of his interest… and boy, had he, ever.

“It doesn’t seem like he was repelled by the idea of two men together,” Koizumi added, “judging by the way he reacted to your mistake in thinking that he and his friend were a couple.”

“No, he’s never seemed the type to be bigoted like that,” Shouto agreed. “He has no problem with our teacher and his partner being a couple, either. But that doesn’t mean that he’s open to a relationship with another man.”

“That’s true,” the counsellor agreed.

“So we’re right back where we started?” Shouto asked, sounding disappointed.

“Are we? When you came in today, you were sounding unsure as to whether to truly had feelings for Izuku, and whether it was wise to even allow yourself to have feelings for anyone. How do you feel about it, now?”

“Hmmm,” Shouto said. “I guess you’re right. It doesn’t matter if it’s a good idea to like him or not, because I already do.”

“And?”

“It’s how I handle my feelings that will determine if it turns out to be a good thing or a bad thing.”

He had some more thinking to do, clearly.

“Exactly. Same time next week?”

“I’ll be here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really apologize for being so scatterbrained! I blame stress and my depression (which has been kicking my ass). I WILL be taking a much needed vacay for a few days in California to spend some quality time with my dog at the beach, and I have been working hard to overcome the issues that are aggravating my depression. Rest assured that I have been taking my meds and getting rest and staying hydrated and all that.


	22. A Rock and a Hard Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things go from bad to worse at camp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're getting this week's chapter early, since I'm going to be leaving on a small vacation in a couple of days. I have a short companion side story/chapter to go with this, that I will be trying to get up before I leave, but I'm not going to sweat it, if I don't have time. I don't see me having any trouble keeping with the weekly posting because of my trip, so no worries there!

“What’s the burning smell?” 

Pixie-Bob’s question had everyone stopping and breathing deep. 

“There’s black smoke,” Mandalay said, pointing above the trees. “A lot of it! This is bad.”

“Stay out of our way, kittycats,” called a masculine looking woman, holding a long pillar that seemed to be a heavy object wrapped in a sheet. 

Suddenly Pixie-Bob was on the ground, her glasses broken and a large lump already forming on her forehead from the hit she’d taken with the pillar..

“Damn!” Mandalay hissed. “Even with all the precautions we took!”

“Villains? Here? How?” Iida sputtered, as Tiger leaped in front of the kids as a shield.

“I’ll use my _Telepath_ to let everyone know,” Mandalay said, stepping up beside Tiger.

The lizard-like villain that Izuku remembered from the mall incident spread his arms wide, as if in greeting old friends. “Pleased to meetcha, Yuuei students! We’re the League of Villains Vanguard Action Squad!”

“League of Villains? How’d they find us?” Ojiro asked angrily.

“Like he said,” The woman villain added, “we’re an _action_ squad. Should my first act be to crush this pretty one’s head in? What do you think?”

“As if I’d let you!” Tiger said threateningly. 

“Don’t be so hasty, Magne nee-san! You too, Tiger. Calm down!” The one with scaly skin seemed calm as he spoke. “Holding power over someone’s life is everything; or don’t you believe in Stain’s tenets?”

“So, you’re Stain’s followers!” Iida shouted. 

“That we are! And we know all about _you_, Iida Tenya. You were one of the ones responsible for bringing Stain’s reign to an end in Hosu City. Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Spinner.” The man drew a ridiculously huge composite weapon from where it had been strapped to his back. It was dozens of knives, swords and other weapons all bundled together and secured with leather belts and chains. It would have been laughable in any other situation. “I intend to make Stain’s dreams come true!”

“Whoa,” Izuku mumbled, taking in the monstrous weapon.

“That’s all well and good,” Tiger said, “But that woman lying on the ground there is my best friend. She’s been working hard to find some happiness in this world, and wanting to get married...and now you’ve marked her face and you’re yapping like it’s nothing?”

“So! Heroes _do_ have dreams of happiness like normal people?” Spinner said, as his face took on a maniacal expression and he rushed forward.

“Tiger! I’ve broadcast the order. Ragdoll will make sure the other students are safe! It’s up to us to hold the line here!” Mandalay said urgently. Without taking her eyes off of the villain, she shouted to the students, “Everyone get going! Lead them, Midoriya and IIda! Remember, no combat!”

“Yes ma’am!” Iida said, already turning to make sure that Koda and Ojiro were ahead of him.

“Go one without me, Tenya,” Izuku told him, turning to Mandalay.

Both Iida and Ojiro shouted at him, but Izuku ignored the pleading in their voices. 

“Mandalay! I know where Kouta is! I can go and get him and bring him back faster than anyone else,” Izuku said.

Hearing that, Iida nodded and led the others toward the base camp building to try to find their teacher and classmates.

Mandalay only hesitated for a moment before nodding and saying, “GO!” before Spinner and Magne were upon the heroes and the fighting began. 

Izuku didn’t waste time. He was a blur of green and red and he pushed One For All hard, shredding plants and saplings in his wake. He didn’t slow as he rounded the slope that led to Kouta’s hideout, and was just in time to tackle him out of the way of a mountain of a man that appeared to be trying to crush him. His phone smashed on the rocky ground as he and Kouta skidded and tumbled across the lookout, away from the villain. Izuku was on his feet in an instant, standing firmly between Kouta and the threat. “Don’t worry, Kouta. I’m going to save you.”

Then, Izuku got his first real look at the hulking mass of human in front of him. He had thought at first that it might be one of those nomu from Hosu, but this man was possibly just as dangerous. Muscular. The man who had murdered the Water Hose Duo; he even bore the scar and prosthetic eye as a memento of the fight they had given when fighting him.

“HA! You’re going to save him? Don’t make me laugh! You heroes are always spoutin’ off crap like justice and all that!”

“Midoriya?” Kouta whimpered in disbelief. “That’s the guy that…”

“I know,” Izuku told him, without looking. “I know who he is. I’m going to keep him from hurting you.”

Inside, Izuku was holding a panic attack at bay. No heroes were going to save him, this time. No one knew where he was, or how much danger he faced. He had to handle this on his own, or both he and Kouta might not survive, and that was _not_ an option Izuku was willing to entertain. He wracked his brain for any information it could give him about Muscular and his quirk. 

“Midoriya! Excellent! You’re at the very top of the list! Imagine a newbie like me finding you right off the bat! The boss’ll be happy for sure,” Muscular said, advancing on them. “The kid, sadly for him, is _not_ on my list, which means I get to play with him before I kill him.”

“Over my dead body!” Izuku growled at him, red and green lines blooming over and under his skin in anticipation.

“Neat trick, kid, but pretty lights ain’t gonna help ya,” Muscular said casually. “I’m supposed to bring you back alive, but they didn’t say you had to be in one piece!”

The fist that hit Midoriya’s arms, even as he threw them up in a block, had the power of a freight train behind it. He was tossed through the air to slam against the mountain, surely fracturing at least one of his arms. That fact was only a fleeting thought as he scrambled back to his feet, feeling dazed.

“Let’s play!” Muscular’s voice was gleeful as he delivered a flying kick that connected with Izuku’s right shoulder and sent him into the wall again, before he fell to the ground. 

Izuku’s mind was churning with information that he searched through for clues that might help him. Muscular’s quirk was a standard power building one. Muscle Augmentation that gave him the ability to manipulate and amplify his muscle fibers to the point where they couldn’t even fit in his skin. He was crazy fast, durable and an experienced fighter. He liked to torture and toy with his victims, and just plain enjoyed killing. There would be no appealing to his humanity or sense of decency, because he didn’t possess any.

“Yes! Blood! I knew you’d be be good sport!” the man crowed. “Get up and show me what a hero thinks he can do. You were going to save him, right? Let’s see!”

Izuku told himself to stay focused. He couldn’t afford to try and comfort Kouta and fight a monster at the same time. He hoped the boy had enough sense to run and hide while Muscular was distracted with them. He couldn’t call out to him and tell him to do so, and risk putting attention anywhere but on himself. 

Izuku launched to his feet and charged toward the villain, only to be swatted away again like a pesky fly. 

“You don’t get it, do you? My quirk raises the standard for speed and power! Not even All Might could’ve beaten me! You might be strong and fast, but you’re nothing but an inferior version of me!” Muscular advanced again, while Izuku coughed out a little blood and tried to get the breath that had been knocked out of him. “You’re going to save him? HOW? Talk is cheap when you can’t back it up with _actions_.You really ought to be honest with yourself!”

As he leaned to grab Izuku’s shirt front, no doubt to deliver a punishing blow, Muscular’s attention was caught by a rock bouncing off of his head. Izuku groaned inwardly when he saw Kouta standing on trembling legs, clearly having thrown the offending stone. 

“Water Hose… My mom and my dad...is this what you did to them? Is this how they died? When you killed them?” Kouta’s eyes were full of tears and rage. He was breathing heavily, and his terror was evident.

_’NO!’_ Izuku screamed in his head, _’This is exactly the kind of the thing that triggers his blood-lust! Just hide! Just let me distract him long enough!_’

“Whoa! Seriously? You’re _their_ kid? This must be fate, or something!” Muscular sounded delighted as he walked toward Kouta. Dragging Izuku along with him by his shirtfront.

_’I can’t match his speed, he’s super strong and no help is coming,’_ Izuku told himself, even as he realized that his left arm was certainly broken and hanging limply. _’Which means…’_

He charged up One For All, knowing it would turn his attention away from Kouta. He swung his broken arm as if throwing a punch. As he predicted, the muscle fibers grabbed hold of his useless arm and pulled Izuku’s whole body in. “Now speed doesn’t matter,” Izuku growled.

“So? What are you going to do? Hit me with your other messed up arm? You can’t beat me!” Muscular sounded both amused and annoyed in equal measure.

“It doesn’t matter if I can beat you or not,” Izuku told him, flooding his body with as much All For One as it could handle without exploding, “BECAUSE HEROES STAKE THEIR LIVES! THAT’S WHAT WE DO! WE TURN OUR WORDS INTO ACTIONS!”

Izuku let loose all of the power he could possible deliver into a single punch. He felt his arm shatter under the impact, even as dust flew around them, and air pressure caused a strong wind to blast through the area, and Izuku felt himself knocked free. Thinking fast, Izuku zipped past Muscular and caught Kouta’s collar in his teeth just in time to keep him from tumbling off of the cliff side. He dragged him back onto the ledge, noticed Muscular still standing, and murmured quietly, “Kouta, I don’t know if I can beat him. You need to get down into the trees and hide. Somewhere small, where only a kid your size can fit. Don’t come out until you’re sure it’s safe, okay?”

“That was actually pretty good, kid,” Muscular said, sounding impressed.”But nothing stops me.”

“Why are you even here? What’s the League’s goal?” Izuku asked him desperately, trying to buy time for Kouta to escape. 

“Like I care!” Muscular tossed back. “I just joined up cause they’ll let me rampage.” He advanced, reaching into his pocket, small discs falling to the ground as he searched for something. “I said we were playing, but that was before I knew you were strong. So now…”

He wasn’t joking. He sped toward Izuku in a flash that he only escaped by a nanosecond by leaping upward. Muscular crashed into the mountainside, leaving a huge crater, and didn’t even seem to feel the impact. Kouta wobbled dangerously near the edge as he was trying to get by, and Izuku put on as much speed as he could, grabbing the boy’s shirt with his teeth again and tossing him to a relatively more stable surface before the villain caught up with him. 

Izuku got thrown hard into the side of the mountain again, and started to second guess himself. 

‘_Maybe my best option is to run? Aizawa isn’t that far away. If I can carry Kouta on my back and get to where Aizawa can erase his quirk… but...can I run fast enough? This guy is like lightning, and I’m past exhausted from training all day. My strongest punch didn’t even phase him… **NO!** It has to be here. It has to be NOW. Remember where you came from and how your got here. You’ve got to fight and win to save Kouta. There is no other option!’_

“Get back, Kouta,” he said aloud. “Not too far. If you run, he’ll just chase you. If he gets me, then that’s when you _run_. Don’t look back. Just run and hide like I told you before.”

“If he ‘gets’ you?” Kouta screeched. “This is crazy! You can’t do this! Both your arms are broken and your attack didn’t even scratch him! Let’s just run!”

“IT’S OKAY.” Izuku waited for Muscular to rush in and let loose with a move he’d learned for watching old All Might videos. “**DETROIT SMASH!”**

The fist of his unshattered arm connected with muscle fiber, but the swirling air kept it back as he kept applying pressure. His arm burned and tried to buckle, but the titanium rods held. 

“That was even weaker than before,” Muscular taunted.

“Go, Kouta!” Izuku instructed as he felt his feet sliding back and his knees beginning to give way. “I won’t let him one step past me, so just go! RUN!”

“Wow, kid! You’re something else! I hope I don’t lose control and kill you in all the excitement!”

Izuku knew he was going to go down, it was just a question of how long he could hold on. He had to give Kouta enough time…”SHUT UP!” he screamed at Muscular, doing everything in his power to keep the villain from noticing Kouta’s escape.

“SHOW ME SOME BLOOD!” Muscular shouted at Izuku, “I’ll crush you!”

_’They say your life flashes before your eyes at times like these, but..’_ Izuku thought as his vision grew dim. He felt his back finally touch the ground under the onslaught and pressure that we being applied to his body. He couldn’t get a decent breath, and his hearing was fading. _’I’m sorry Gran, I’m sorry Hitoshi, I’m sorry...I tried…’_

His vision swam back to gray, and then became clearer a little at a time. Something was dripping on his face...blood? Then he saw it...Kouta was somehow on muscular’s shoulders, legs locked around the massive neck, and hands over the villain’s nose and mouth. Muscle fibers waved wildly and wrapped around the boy, but Kouta didn’t relent. It was then that Izuku realized that Kouta had a quirk very much like his parents’. The boy was screaming and crying as gallons of water streamed from his hands and into muscular’s nose and mouth, not allowing him to get any air into his lungs without also breathing in water. 

“You killed my parents, you animal! You took them away from me! I hate you! I hate you!_** I HATE YOU!” **_

All of the rage and sadness that Kouta had been carrying inside of him poured out in a literal high pressure stream, forcefully drowning Muscular. When the villain finally ceased moving and fell face first to the ground, Kouta tumbled off of him, kicking the loose muscle fibers away from his feet. He paused for long enough to kick the man repeatedly in the face in rage before he came to his senses and scrambled over to Midoriya, who was painfully crawling up onto this knees.

“Is he dead?” Kouta asked, sounding fearful and hopeful at the same time as he steadied Midoriya by his shoulders.

For Kouta’s sake, Izuku hoped that the man had somehow survived; it might feel good now to know that he had avenged his parents, but taking another life was something that could leave it’s own scars. Izuku didn’t have much feeling in his hands and very little control over his arms, but he managed to shuffle forward to put an ear to the man’s back and listen.

“He still has a heartbeat,” he told the boy. “So let’s not wait around for him to wake up. Climb up on my back. I left my legs as unhurt as I could so we could run away. Can you do that?”

Kouta nodded and started to scramble up to get a hold around Izuku’s neck, when an arm shot out and grabbed Kouta’s ankle. Muscular growled from his place on the ground, starting to lift his head. Izuku jumped backward, but the grip on Kouta’s leg was too strong. Thinking quickly, Kouta reached out and gripped the metal disc that served as a lens for the villain’s prosthetic eye, and wrenched it off, causing the villain to shout in pain and alarm. However, he was still sluggish from being nearly drowned, and Kouta used the lens in his hand and jammed it into the unscathed eye like a trowel into dirt, causing the hand on his leg to let go in favor of clasping his hands over his bloody face. 

Izuku stared dumbly for a moment, not quite believing the savagery of what he’d just seen, but sprung into action when Kouta turned and jumped on his back with bloody hands holding tightly to his shoulders. 

“Hang on tight,”: Izuku advised. “My arms aren’t working and I need to go fast, but I can’t hold onto you.”

“I'll hang on,” Kouta told him. “You just run!” 

It took surprisingly little time for Izuku to reach the clearing, and amazing luck had him skidding to a stop right in front of Aizawa.

“What happened?” Aizawa demanded, automatically taking Kouta from his back and holding the boy in his arms. 

“We got attacked my Muscular,” Izuku told him, panting for air. “He’s still up on the mountain. We only got away because Kouta blinded him.”

If Aizawa found that surprising, his expression didn’t show it. 

“There are at least five, and possibly as many as ten villains in the area. Get back to the main building’s classroom; that’s where the others are. I’m going to go looking for the ones that aren’t back yet.”

“He said there was a list,” Izuku told him. “He said I was at the top, but a list is more than one, right?”

“Take the kid and get to the others,” Aizawa said grimly. “Do _not_ run off on your own again.”

He was gone before Izuku could argue, and Kouta looked ready to faint, so Izuku herded him toward the building, where there were twenty three students standing (or lying) around in various states of distress or downright panic.

“Deku!” several voices cried out at once. 

“What the fuck happened to you?” one of the class B boys asked in dismay. 

A moment later, Mandalay’s voice could be heard in everyone’s heads. _Eraserhead hereby gives all students in classes A and B permission to engage in combat, if you are faced with the enemy._

All of the student’s eyes widened, and several headed for the door before Vlad King stepped in front of them with his arms out.

“No one is going out there!” he said firmly. “That order was for the kids still heading back here, and only to be heeded if they run into an enemy.”

While several students began to argue with him, wanting to go out searching for their missing classmates, other rushed forward to help Midoriya. His arms were an ugly purple/black and hanging limply from his shoulders, clearly dislocated. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and his torso was mottled with bruises, scrapes and blood. Yaoyorozu immediately began pulling bandages from her arms, and then splints. Todoroki appeared and eased Izuku onto the ground, then pressed a frosty hand to his eye and cheek, and it felt like heaven.

“You’re not feeling it yet, are you?” Shouto asked him, helping Yaoyorozu hold a splint in place on Izuku’s arm. “Too many endorphins.”

“It hurts like hell,” Izuku said through gritted teeth, “But not as much as it probably should.”

“Vlad King used a landline to call the authorities, but they’re a long way out,” Yaoyorozu said in a quiet, calm voice as she worked on wrapping Izuku’s arms snugly to the sturdy plastic splints to hopefully prevent further damage.

“What happened to them?” Izuku asked, seeing several students lying on the floor with other students watching over them. It appeared that Jiro and Hagakure were among them. 

“One of the villains was controlling poison gas,” Shouto said with disgust. “Yaoyorozu made everyone in that area gas masks, so most of them got out of it okay. She saved a lot of lives.”

“The fire?” Izuku asked, needing to know the details. 

“Still burning. They won’t let me leave to try to fight it,” Shouto said in a frustrated tone. “It’s burning in a ring around the camp, to keep us in. It’s obviously a trap.”

“Kouta has a water quirk. When it’s safe to go out, he might be able to help,” Izuku said, his eyes meeting the frightened ones hovering behind Yaoyorozu. “He was amazing out there. He saved us both.”

Kouta’s eyes dripped and his nose was snotty, but he didn’t argue. “Onii-san saved me from Muscular! He fought him, so we could get away.”

Shouto and Yaoyorozu both gasped at the name of the villain. 

“We make a good team, Kouta! Good work,” Izuku assured him, forcing a smile that he hoped wasn’t more of a grimace. “You’re safe now, so you can relax, okay? Mandalay will be here as soon as all the students get back.” 

“Todoroki-kun, help Midoriya sit up so I can tape his ribs,” Yaoyorozu said. 

Shouto was as gentle as he could be, but the pain was starting to make itself known. Izuku winced as ribs protested at being forced to move, and his arms were beginning to throb in time with his heartbeat. 

“Hold on there,” Vlad said, coming to kneel by Midoriya. “Before you wrap him up, let’s get his arms back in place.”

Izuku looked at him alarm.

“I know what I’m doing...but it ain’t gonna be fun for you. Once they’re relocated, you’ll feel a hell of a lot better, though.” Vlad promised. 

Izuku nodded and only grunted when his arms were manipulated, though tears sprang to his eyes. He didn’t want Kouta to freak out, seeing him crying out in pain, so he held it in as best he could.

After his arms were back where they belonged, he did feel more balanced. His two friends nodded at each other and moved as quickly and efficiently as they could to bind him firmly; an experience that Izuku was sadly familiar with. 

“Lean back against me,” Shouto directed, tugging lightly at Izuku’s shoulders. 

Izuku did as he was told, melting back against a firm chest that was now coated in ice. Brilliant,” he breathed, as the cold covered from shoulders to waist. “The world’s best ice pack.”

“This...this is my fault,” Kouta said tearfully, kneeling beside Izuku. “If I didn’t run off, you wouldn’t have had to come looking for me, and you wouldn’t have to fight that monster.”

“It’s _not_ your fault,” Izuku told him firmly. “It’s the villain’s fault. No one else’s.”

“He’s right, Kouta-kun,” Yaoyorozu said, sitting beside the boy and automatically starting to treat his scrapes and cuts. “We can’t blame ourselves for the actions of others, and we can’t can’t blame others for our own actions. We’re responsible for our own choices, and you did nothing wrong.”

“That goes for you too, dumb-ass,” Hitoshi said, coming into the room looking a little worse for wear, but not injured. “Don’t even think about blaming yourself for these guys showing up here.” 

Izuku nodded. Hitoshi knew him well, and it was probably simple to guess that Izuku had been thinking that this wouldn’t have happened if the villains hadn’t been after him. 

“Do I even want to know how you ended up looking like this, or how you’re even still conscious?” Hitoshi asked, rubbing his eyes tiredly. 

“It’s a long story,” Izuku said, wincing when he tried to huff out a short laugh. “They’re apparently here mainly to try and get me, again. They said they had a list, though. They might also be after others.”

Now that he had a moment to think about it, from what he knew about All For One, there were any number of quirks in this camp he’d love to steal from their owners. His heart rate picked up as he considered it. 

“Calm down,” Hitoshi said, recognizing the wild look in his friend’s eyes and noting the rapid breathing. “You’ve been doing great at not panicking, don’t stop now.”

Shouto put both arms around Izuku, both coated in ice, and rested them lightly across his rib cage, likely thinking that it was pain that was causing his sudden change. 

“Are you okay?” Kouta asked fretfully. 

Izuku remembered that the boy was watching and sucked his emotions back, forcing as deep a breath as his bindings would allow and feeling grounded by Shouto’s arms.

“I’m good. Just a little overwhelmed,” Izuku said, voice sounding raspy. “I promise.”

Within a few minutes, Aizawa and Mandalay came into the classroom, looking around at the gathered kids. Kouta ran to his aunt, throwing his arms around her tightly. She scooped him up and held him close, even while she gave instructions. 

“The villains have retreated for the moment. We’re going to try to get you all out of here. The buses are only about a hundred meters from here, and the rest of the students are in the courtyard. All of you move quickly; help those who can’t move on their own. Don’t worry about personal possessions, just _go_,” she said. 

Everyone sprang into action at once, helping to get the victims of the gas into strong arms or onto willing backs to be carried outside. They filed out, relieved to see their classmates, some with tears in their eyes at the realization that none of them had been lost for good. 

Tiger carried Pixie-Bob, who was still not responsive, but Ragdoll was nowhere to be seen. They started on the path to the road where the buses waited, only to be cut off by a swirling black vortex that Izuku knew all too well.

“Get back!” he shouted, “That’s a warp gate!”

Everyone shuffled backward, and a moment later a massive form emerged. Skin as black as tar and a muzzle that looked like a beak, with bulging eyes and an exposed brain, a nomu larger even than All Might had been and just at strong-looking, stood before them. Shigaraki followed, standing beside the abomination as if it were a pet, smiling widely beneath the grayish hand he wore on his face like a mask.

“Not leaving so soon, are we?” he asked with a sick giggle.

Behind him, the scarred man who made fire stepped out, along with the one Izuku remembered was called Mr. Compress. They stood like bodyguards, waiting silently for a word from their boss. The portal closed behind them, seeming to have finished transporting villains to their location for the moment. It could very well be delivering some elsewhere in camp, though. It was possible that they’d just regrouped and were implementing a new plan.

“I’m sure you remember Dabi and Mr. Compress?” Shigaraki introduced with a jovial wave. “And this is my _nomu_. An improved version over the weaklings I set loose in Hosu.”

“What do you want?” Vlad demanded, as students began to spread themselves out in a semicircle, preparing for an attack.

“So many things!” Shigaraki said, almost cheerfully . “I even have a list of items to find to clear this level! At the top of that is _him_.”

All eyes turned as the villain pointed straight at Midoriya, and several closed ranks around him, offering their protection, including Bakugou and Shouto, arguably the two strongest in class.

“How nice for the others on my list to gather in one spot!” Shigaraki said. “Mr. Compress?”

But Mr. Compress wasn’t as fast as Eraserhead, whose eyes were glowing red in his direction.

“_Troublesome_. Nomu, take down Eraserhead.” Shigaraki hissed.

No one even saw the creature move, he was that fast. One moment he was standing still as a statue at Shigaraki’s side, and the next he was in front of Aizawa, bringing a huge fist down on him, instantly crashing him to the ground. Several screams and shouts echoed through the night as Aizawa fell and did not get back up. Tiger and Vlad rushed the nomu, but nothing affected it; it didn’t even seem to notice they were there.

“Shock absorption,” Shigaraki explained lazily. “Among other things. You probably learned from the first nomu you captured that these things have multiple quirks. This one has the speed, strength and recovery factors to withstand anything you losers can dish out. He could kill every one of you without losing health points.”

This was bad. Worse than bad. Izuku was thinking of dozens of scenarios, and none of them were good. There had to be a weak spot in their defenses. There _had_ to be. Shock absorption. Shock absorption… “Absorption, _not_ nullification.”

“What are you mumbling about?” Bakugou growled, never taking his eyes off of the nomu. 

“He said shock absorption, not shock nullification, that means…”

“He has a limit!” Bakugou finished, for once sounding glad he’s listened to Deku.

“It’s not going to be a small limit, we’re going to need everyone with an emitter quirk to work together at once to overload that thing.” Hitoshi surmised. 

“Ha! You’re welcome to try!” Shigaraki said, obviously having heard them. “Even All Might wouldn't’ have been able to bring down _this_ nomu. You noobs don’t stand a chance.”

Aizawa groaned and lifted his head for a moment, only to have it shoved roughly back to the ground by the nomu stepping on it.

“You think we’re just going to hand people over to you?” Hitoshi called to Shigaraki.

“Don’t answer him,” Mr. Compress advised. “That’s how he gets you.”

Hitoshi grunted in anger, but didn’t give up. “So you think I can beat him, then! If he wasn’t scared of my quirk, he wouldn't need you to speak for him. I mean, look at him! He can’t even find a lip balm or a hairbrush!”

“Nomu. Get rid of the brat,” Shigaraki ordered.

Izuku tackled Hitoshi to the ground at the same time that Shouto sent his ice out, encasing the nomu in a thick, jagged, frozen block.

“This won’t hold him!” Shouto warned, even as the ice began to crack. “Everyone get ready to hit him with everything you’ve got!”

Izuku was worse the useless, he was helpless. As his friends rushed forward to attack the nomu, an arm wrapped around his neck and dragged him backward. He was as good as captured.

“Don’t know what our mysterious benefactor wants with you, but you’re coming with us,” a low voice said in his ear. Judging by the rough texture of the skin under his chin and across his neck, it was the villain called Dabi that had grabbed him. One wrong move, and Izuku could find himself afire. He could only watch while the nomu was subjected to an onslaught of attacks: wrapped thickly in vines and tape, battered with explosions and jolts of electricity and punches and kicks. Many were swatted aside by the creature, but most got back up and kept at it. No one held back, bombarding the nomu relentlessly for long minutes, until it finally, _finally_ fell. 

“A glitch?” Shigaraki growled, kicking dirt. “Another glitch in the game? Sensei said it was as strong as All Might! He said so!”

“We have what we came for,” Mr. Compress said, holding up two marbles between the fingers on one hand. “I suggest we retreat for the time being.”

“Right. Level cleared, but I don’t have to like it,” Shigaraki muttered unhappily.

“Oh, no you don't!” Hitoshi shouted. 

Izuku’s eyes flew to him and saw that he had Aizawa’s capture weapon in his hands, and he had used it to secure Mr. Compress’s wrist. One of the marbles slipped and flew out of his reach, releasing Bakugou, who looked dazed as he stumbled to a stop. 

Dabi brought a burning hand down to sever the weapon that held Compress, and Izuku took the opportunity to turn and kick at Shigaraki. That was the last thing he remembered doing before his body felt heavy and tight, as if being pressed into the ground.

When Izuku became aware again, he was lying on a hardwood floor, dust swirling around him. He coughed, then groaned at the pain in his ribs from doing so.

“On your feet, little hero,” came a rough voice.

Izuku cried out involuntarily as his recently relocated arm was used to pull him to a standing position.

“Get him tied up before you release the other one,” came a familiar voice.

Izuku was having trouble parsing what was happening. Just a moment ago, he’d been standing, kicking out at Shigaraki… Of course. Mr. Compress must have gotten him. Shouto had described the feeling of being caught after the mall incident. 

He found himself shoved into a seat, and then a needle prick in his neck as he was injected with something...then his world went dark.

“Kid. Kid, wake up,” a voice that sounded as though it was coming from under water at first, was rousing Izuku from the twilight he’d been suspended in. A sharp slap to his already sore cheek brought things into focus, and Spinner was standing before him, looking at him closely. “Finally. Thought you might have slipped into a coma, or something.”

Izuku didn’t answer, but looked around him cautiously. His arms were stretched behind his back and bound somehow. It was hard to tell what was holding him, because the splints and bandages were still in place. It hurt when he tugged on them, so he simply leaned backward as far as the stiff chair would allow. Two other villains were in the room, which appeared to be a bar of some kind? One of the villains was the masculine looking woman with the big lips that he’d heard Spinner call Magne. She was seated at the bar with a drink in front of her, looking disinterested, and holding an ice pack to her head. The other villain in the room stood behind the bar, wearing a formal vest and tie with a button up shirt, despite the fact that his head seemed to be made of black mist wafting out of a metal collar of some kind, with yellow eyes floating in the blackness.

He turned his head to the left cautiously because every movement was agony, and found Shouto in a chair a couple of meters away, hanging limply his his restraints.

“What did you do to him?” Izuku rasped out.

“Nothing that can’t be reversed. He’s just taking a little nap, so he doesn’t burn the place down or turn it into a giant iceberg.” Spinner said. “Shigaraki said to wake you.”

Izuku’s head was not the clearest it had ever been, but the mention of the villain with the disintegration quirk shot a jolt of adrenaline through him, giving him the motivation to pay attention.

“Shigaraki said why he wanted me, but why did you take Todoroki? Ransom? Revenge?”

Spinner shrugged as though it didn’t matter to him one way or the other. “Both, maybe? They didn’t give me the details. The only reason I care about you is because Stain chose you. He saw something in you worth saving.”

“Yet you helped them capture me, so they can probably kill me?” Izuku asked incredulously.

“They said they weren’t gonna kill you,” Spinner said, as if that was a real answer. 

“What a relief,” Izuku said sarcastically.

“I suggest you speak to sensei with more respect, Midoriya Izuku,” Shigaraki said as he entered the room. 

Not only did the man have a hand over his face, but several more disembodied hands gripped his arms and shoulders in a macabre display.

“You mean All For One?” Izuku asked him, needing the confirmation.

“So you _do_ know! Excellent!” Shigaraki said, standing directly in front of Izuku so that the hero had to crane his neck to look at him. “So you can understand why he’s so eager to meet you.”

“_All For One?_” Magne muttered in a surprised tone from her seat at the bar. “_Seriously? Holy shit! Nice knowin’ ya, kid!”_

Izuku ignored her. There was a good chance he was about to die, but if it was true, he’d do it like a hero and go down fighting, like All Might had. He didn’t move even the slightest muscle as Shigaraki circled him and destroyed his bindings. He felt the man take his arm and roughly pull him to standing, and tried to prepare himself for pain, but the fifth finger didn’t land. He wasn’t about to have his arm turned to dust...yet.

“Be a good little hero, and cooperate. You might just make it out of here alive!” Shigaraki told him, while tugging him down a hallway to a narrow door.

The door led to a stairwell that disappeared downward into the dark. Izuku felt like he was living a scene out of a horror movie as they descended. A faint light grew brighter as they went deeper into what must be a basement or wine cellar. The air was cooler and smelled oddly of...rubbing alcohol? It reminded him of the sterile scent of the hospital, and it made his nose twitch in distaste. He became aware of a rhythmic hissing sound and clicking, then a soft beeping. Layered over that noise was the soft notes of classical music just loud enough to be heard clearly as they approached a curtain hung from the ceiling. 

“I’ve brought him, Sensei,” Shigaraki said quietly. “Just like you asked.”

Shigaraki moved the curtain aside and dragged Izuku through to the other side, where a man in a hospital bed was propped up on many pillows. The bed had an elegant comforter on in, and the sheets were a deep burgundy, but it was a hospital bed, nonetheless. The bed sat on a fine persian rug, and the room was made to look like the master bedroom of any western style mansion with dark woods and fine art. Fresh flowers. Izuku had to wonder why someone had gone to so much expense, when the man before him was horribly scarred, and obviously blind. 

In spite of all the finery around the man, there were machines and tubes hooked to him,running over and under his skin. It looked like he’d probably die without them, there were so many. Had he been like this since his last battle with All Might? That had been six years ago!

“Leave us alone, Tomura.” The voice that came from the man in the bed was frail and reedy sounding, but commanding, all the same.

“Yes, Sensei,” Shigaraki said. He turned and left without another word, his footsteps retreating back up the stairs.

“And so, you are the Ninth holder of One For All, Midoriya Izuku. Who could have guessed that All Might would have had the time and presence of mind to pass it on before he died? But to an ordinary, formerly quirkless child?”

Izuku didn’t know what to say to that pronouncement. It was obviously a rhetorical question, though Izuku hadn’t known that he was ninth holder. He only knew what those who had known All Might had been told. Due to the nature of the secret, the hero hadn’t shared that tidbit with even his closest friends, apparently.

“I should think you’d have a great many questions for me,” All for one said expectantly. “Since I’m the one who gave the original holder the quirk in the first place. My own brother, in fact; since he didn’t seem to have one of his own.”

“Why aren’t you dead?” Izuku wished he could take the words back as soon as they’d escaped him, but it had been the first question to pop into his head. It wasn’t like he could count on a man that was likely his greatest enemy to tell him the truth, and even in this frail state, he gave off an aura of great menace. Izuku told himself that he needed to be careful with his words, regardless of how this man appeared.

All for One wheezed in what seemed to be a laugh that ended in a cough. The skin that was stretched tightly over his skull, puckered from the base of what was once his nose and over the empty sockets where his eyes would have been. He was possibly trying to scowl? Possibly it was the only expression the man was capable of making.

“I refuse to die, that’s why,” he answered. “Up until recently, I had a regenerative quirk that kept me from deteriorating, but I gave it to a nomu for an experiment, and I’ve yet to reclaim it. I can exist in this state a while longer, while the nomu is examined and repaired. Once I reclaim that quirk, my health will be greatly improved.”

“You gave your quirk to a nomu.” Izuku repeated that statement in an attempt to make sense of it., but couldn’t quite wrap his mind around the idea.

“I did. One of them, anyway; I have many quirks at my disposal. I was forced to take on a regenerative one after my battle with All Might; it’s what saved me, you see. I was determined that Shigaraki Tomura’s mission be successful, so I loaned the quirk to the nomu accompanying him. I did so want to meet you, after all, and since you refused our first invitation, I had to...insist upon it, this time.” All For One made it sound as if Izuku had simply returned an RSVP for a party with his regrets, instead of almost kidnapped. 

“And why did you want to meet me?” Izuku asked, genuinely curious. It was clear that this man was not going to be up to fighting anyone in the near future, despite the feeling of danger he gave off. 

“Why? Why _wouldn’t_ I want to meet the successor of One For All? Even though you’ve a long way to go, I must say. I’ve met all the others, after all.” 

“You murdered all of the others, too,” Izuku pointed out. “Is that why you wanted me taken? So you could k-kill me?”

“A day of reckoning will come between you and All For One, to be sure,” the man said slowly. “But it will be my successor that you will face, when the time is right. You see, it was just too perfect when I found him. Poetic justice that he would come into my care, after Shimura Nana threw away the boy’s father.”

“Shimura...She was the one who gave One For All to All Might,” Izuku recalled. “She didn’t throw him away! She put her son into the foster care system to protect him!”

“And protected he was...but bitter. He grew up and married and had children of his own that he raised with overly strict morals and an intense hatred of heroes. What perfect irony!” All For One chucked in his wheezy, raspy voice.

Izuku shook his head, trying to sort his thoughts. All Might’s predecessor had given up her child, who had grown up to hate heroes as a result...then had had a son that he poisoned against heroes, too?

“Then, how did you get him? Did you kidnap him?” Izuku asked.

“No, no, no...I found him on the street. Dirty, alone, hungry and misunderstood. I simply offered him a new life, and he took it.” All For One made it all sound so reasonable, without really giving any answers. “And I’ve been grooming him to be my heir, ever since. I must say that I’m glad that All Might managed to pass One For All along; Tomura had been losing motivation, with no real nemesis to challenge him, once All Might died.”

Izuku’s stomach turned at the thought. 

“When you made such a splash at the Sports Festival, I knew immediately. It’s beautiful in its simplicity, isn’t it? You, who are the heir of One For All, and Shigaraki Tomura, the heir apparent of All For One, destined to meet on the field of battle one day.” All For One seemed lost in a daydream about it for a few moments, a pleased smile on his lips. “But you both have a lot of growing to do before either of you is ready to wield these quirks competently. I wouldn’t even consider passing All For One to Tomura, yet. No, though I have lived far longer than anyone, being born at the dawn of quirks myself, I must stay alive until Tomura is ready to take on the mantle and the name.”

_’Small mercies,’_ Izuku thought wildly. _’A psychopath like that with the power to steal and use other’s quirks? Unthinkable!’_

The sound of a door and then footsteps on stairs caught Izuku’s attention, and a moment later, Shigaraki appeared. “Yes, Sensei?”

Izuku had not noticed any movement or way for All For One to summon Shigaraki, but there must have been something.

“I tire. Take him back,” the emaciated man said. Then to Izuku, “We’ll speak again. I have much I want to ask you.”

“Should I summon the doctor?” Shigaraki asked respectfully.

“No, he’s busy with the nomu. It’s lucky for you that Kurogiri was able to retrieve it before the heroes took custody.” All For One scolded.

“Yes. I’m sorry, Sensei,” Shigaraki said with deference.

Izuku said nothing, but winced in pain and revulsion as Shigaraki grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the stairs. 

Once they reached the top, they could hear voices, and Izuku made sure to listen carefully for any clues as to where they were or what they wanted. He didn’t believe for a moment that he’d just be let go after a little chat, and it would be up to him and Shouto to free themselves and escape.

“You didn’t even recognize me, did you Todoroki Shouto?” The man named Dabi was leaning over Shouto threateningly as Izuku reentered the bar area. “Your father has brainwashed you and put you on a pedestal, hasn’t he?”

Shouto sat still and silent, only showing a change when he saw Izuku being escorted into the room. His eyes widened with surprise, and his jaw tightened.

“What do you want with us?” Shouto asked.

“Two very different things,” Dabi told him. “He gets to live...you? Well...maybe not so much.”

“Don’t listen to him Shouto,” Izuku said angrily.

Shigaraki smacked Izuku hard on the side of the head. “Shut up.”

“You’re his _masterpiece_,” Dabi spat at Shouto, then gave an oily smile. “What would it do to him to see it ruined beyond repair?”

_Masterpiece_...that was the same word that Natsuo had used to describe how Endeavor treated Shouto. Dabi obviously had serious issues with Endeavor; enough to use his son as a tool for revenge. 

Izuku didn’t even flinch when he was roughly shoved into the heavy, metal chair and secured with what looked like coated wires of the type one might lock a bicycle up with. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Shouto and the villain threatening him. 

“How about if I make your right eye match your left? You could look like some disfigured panda.” Dabi said, holding up a hand with bright blue flame floating from his fingertips.

If Izuku could have clenched his fists, he’d be doing it. Even without his arms, he was trying to calculate how quickly he could break free and stomp on Dabi’s head, if needed.

“It looks like you have that look covered, already,” Shouto answered flatly.

“Ha! He’s got you there, Dabi!” Magne snorted, looking away from the television for once..

Izuku expected Dabi to lash out in fiery anger, but it didn’t happen. Instead, he merely punched Shouto in the face. It was hard enough to make his head snap backward and his nose to bleed, but it was nothing as bad as it could have been.

“Send the fucking ransom letter,” Dabi said in disgust. “I’m gonna go get some sleep.”

He stormed out of the room, leaving Shigaraki, Magne and Kurogiri in the small bar.

“Magne, you’re on watch. Where did Spinner go?” Shigaraki demanded.

“Toilet.” Magne said, sounding bored.

“Well, he’s on watch with you,” Shigaraki said. “Take them to the toilet, then tie them back up and drug ‘em.”

Izuku contemplated breaking loose and fighting, but didn’t have enough information to make it worth the risk. He had no idea where they were, how many of them there really were, if there were any nomu nearby or even where the exit was. 

“Izuku,” Shouto said quietly.

Magne seemed to be focused on her drink, and a small television above the bar again, and didn’t even look in their direction. 

Izuku looked over at Shouto and saw that his nose was still bleeding a little, and his lip was split and swelling. “We’re going to get out of this,” he said quietly, not wanting to be overheard. 

“How are you doing? You’re in rough shape,” Shouto said. “Where’d they take you?”

“Basement,” Izuku said. “Their boss is interested in me because he thinks I’m supposed to be the next All Might.”

It was close enough to the truth that he was sure Shouto would sense no lie in it. Shouto simply raised his eyebrows.

“No pressure, right?” Izuku huffed out. “He thinks that when I’m _ready_, I’ll make a good nemesis for that Shigaraki guy. Hero to his villain, I guess.”

“This keeps getting stranger,” Shouto murmured. “Dabi seems very familiar to me, but I can’t place why. I don’t know what they drugged us with, but it’s making me feel fuzzy.”

“I know,” Izuku said with a frown. “I don’t like it. They’re planning to do it again, probably so we don’t fight or try to escape. We’ve got to figure out how we’re going to get out of here, or at least get a signal to the heroes to let them know where we are. Any suggestions?”

Spinner stomped into the room just then, complaining about how Kurogiri hadn’t warped back the pieces of his weapon, and how he would need to make a new one, now. Magne muttered some reply Izuku couldn’t hear, then both of them looked at their captives. 

“We’re going to untie you one at a time so you can use the toilet,” Spinner told them. “If either of you makes a move we don’t like, your friend will pay. We’re not allowed to kill you yet, but that doesn’t mean we can’t cut off pieces to make a point. Got it?”

He took Shouto first, and they were gone for a few minutes while Magne abandoned her drink to watch Izuku more closely. 

“You’d be stupid to run, you know. They don’t want you dead for whatever reason. Kurogiri would just port you back here, and you’d get punished for causing trouble.” 

Izuku studied her for a moment before looking away, unable to shrug. He would do what he had to do when the time came.

“You saw the big boss? The guy Shigaraki calls Sensei?” Magne continued, keeping her voice low, as if she were afraid of being heard.

“So?” Izuku said.

“So...Shigaraki and Kurogiri are the only ones who ever see him,” Magne revealed. “We’ll be killed if we go anywhere near the basement, but they just waltzed you right in without blinking.”

“You don’t even know for sure who you’re working for?” Izuku asked. He would have raised his eyebrow if one of his eyes wasn’t swollen nearly shut.

“We’re villains, dumb-ass. If the payoff’s big enough, we don’t need to know shit. The less we know, the less we can spill,” she said impatiently. “I’m just curious what makes you so special.”

“I’d like to know, too,” Izuku prevaricated. 

Magne just grunted. Todoroki was brought back and Izuku was allowed to use the bathroom (thankfully they let him go in alone, though he had to leave the door open. It was a trick to get his pants undone with his arms splinted, but there was no way in hell he was going to let Dabi help him with _that_ chore; he’d wet himself, first. 

Once he was back to his chair, they secured his arms and legs, and didn’t even give him a chance to more than look at Shouto before he felt a prick in his arm, and everything went dark.


	23. Side-chapter after Izuku and Shouto are taken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The bus ride away from camp is an emotional one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just a super short side bit I wanted to add with Hitoshi's point of view, since Izuku is a but tied up at the moment... (*bad pun intended)

“It’ll take all of us together!” Bakugou shouted, recovering quickly from his brief captivity. “He’s got shock absorption, not nullification! He’s got to have a limit!”

After echoing Izuku’s earlier deduction, Bakugou fired off a succession of explosions that had to be hurting his unbraced wrists. All of the long range fighters in both classes let loose on the nomu without reservation. Explosions, acid, electricity, Mushrooms, the earth beneath it turning to quicksand… they all just kept pouring it on, with heavy hitters coming in to kick, punch and cut. It took longer than any of them could imagine, but the beast finally fell under the onslaught.

A moment later, the swirling that had disappeared with the abduction of Izuku and one other person reappeared under the fallen nomu. The monster sank into the depths of the portal without a sound, leaving everyone surprised and warily waiting for another attack. The students and staff were staring in stunned silence for a heartbeat before everyone snapped out of it at once. Even knowing Izuku and at least one other student were taken by villains, they had a situation to deal with immediately.

“Aizawa sensei!” Hitoshi turned and ran to check on his mentor, breathing a sigh of relief when he found a pulse beneath his fingers. The ground was softer where he’d been hit, but had still suffered blunt force trauma and needed medical help. Fast.

Tiger and Mandalay urged students to get to the buses; the fire was still burning, and there was no telling if the villains would return to try to take more of them. The sound of helicopters was starting to fill the air, hopefully there to help extinguish fires and not cover the event for the news.

Vlad bent to check on Aizawa, and let Uraraka use her quirk on her teacher’s body to transport him to the bus, so as not to risk jarring him. They moved quickly and silently, and it wasn’t until they were checking off names as they boarded the buses that they realized that Todoroki was also missing.

“Ragdoll, too,” Tiger said sadly. “Unless she’s unconscious in the forest, they’ve taken her.”

Sirens could be heard, then. Emergency vehicles were on their way. They got the buses underway as the firefighters, police and ambulances arrived. The seriously injured and those affected by the gas were left to be loaded into emergency transport, and the remaining Pussycats stayed behind to help (and search for Ragdoll). Kouta was sent on the bus with the students, and would stay at UA (where he would be safe) until his aunt could come for him.

Hitoshi didn’t even notice that Kouta was clutching the polydactyl cat in his arms until he sat beside him on the bus. 

“Is that your cat?” Hitoshi asked him gently, seeing how fragile the boy looked.

Kouta shook his head, tears filling his eyes but not falling quite yet. “It just lives on the mountain, but I didn’t want her to get hurt by the fire.”

“I’m glad you thought of that,” Hitoshi said comfortingly. “I like that cat a lot.”

“Is...is Midoriya going to be okay?” the boy asked miserably. “They took him, right? I didn’t get to apologize for punching him in the balls.”

Hitoshi wished he knew. Guilt was eating at him like acid in his gut. He should have done something, _anything_ to keep them from taking Izuku. Even with the chaos of the nomu showing up and Shigaraki being there, HItoshi knew that Izuku was the main target and should have stuck close.

In the seat across from them, Tenya was comforting a quietly weeping Uraraka. Others on the bus were also comforting each other and calling home as soon as they got close enough to civilization to get a signal. Hitoshi was getting choked up, seeing how profoundly shaken all of them were. Still, Kouta was a child, and needed someone...a hero… to comfort him.

“He’s going to be fine,” Hitoshi said with a lump in his throat, trying to inject confidence into his tone. “He’s the strongest guy I know. You can apologize properly when he gets back.”

“What if the heroes can’t find him?” Kouta persisted, not able to see Hitoshi’s worry through his own concern.

“Then he’ll rescue himself,” Hitoshi said firmly, for himself as much as the kid. “He’s a lot more brilliant than most people give him credit for. You’ll see.”

“Damn right, he will,” Bakugou suddenly said from the seat behind Hitoshi’s. “He still owes me a fair fight.”

As much as Hitoshi disliked Bakugou on principle, it was comforting to know that the explosive boy was also concerned, but believed that Izuku would be okay.

“See? He’ll be back before you know it.” Hitoshi told Kouta.

Kouta only nodded and kept silent, stroking the tolerant cat until he fell asleep against Hitoshi’s arm. The older boy put his arm around the smaller one, and looked out the window, so his friends would not feel the need to comfort him in their own time of need. 

His eyes were full of tears that he held back by force of will, and stung from the effort. The landscape flashed past the windows, but he didn’t see any of it; he was too busy trying to formulate some sort of plan - any plan - that would get him his best friend back. What was he going to say to Gran? How would he face Aizawa after having failed to keep his classmates from being taken? There was a knot in his chest that made it hard to breathe.

Still, the motion of the bus and the droning of the engine was a rhythmic lullaby. Exhaustion finally took over Hitoshi, and when the cat in Kouta’s slack arms moved to Tosh’s lap, the warm weight lulled him into sleep; a short reprieve from his grief.


	24. Accidental Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izuku and Shouto learn things they wish they didn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My vacay was AMAZING! I feel rejuvenated and ready to tackle life, again! Now I just need to catch up on my writing! Also, please forgive me if I missed any of you when you commented on my story - I try to reply to everyone, but sometimes I read them at work through my email, where I don't have access to AO3 because it's blocked as 'mature.' I love all of you, so don't feel left out!

Izuku did _not_ like being drugged. When he swam back up to fuzzy awareness, it was to voices arguing. His entire body was one large knot of pain and stiffness, and it took a while to focus on what was going on. 

“Bullshit!” came Dabi’s now familiar voice. “You think he’d ever pay a hundred million to get _me_ back? I was nothing but a failed experiment to him, and as soon as you came along, I was thrown away like garbage!”

“Hey! Dabi, calm down,” came Spinner’s voice. “You’re drunk, man. Don’t do anything you’re gonna regret later!”

Izuku couldn’t see exactly what was going on, because he kept his head slumped, pretending to still be under the influence of whatever drug they’d given him. How long had he been out? He turned his head ever so slightly to try to see Shouto,but it was difficult with one eye swollen shut. What he saw made his heart nearly stop in his chest. 

Shouto looked absolutely _horrified_. His eyes were wide, and his mouth hung open in disbelief, staring at what Izuku assumed was Dabi. He could see the villain’s hand on Shouto’s shoulder, but didn’t dare move, yet. Shouto remained silent, but was shaking his head in small jerky movements.

“Don’t believe me?” Dabi continued, leaning down into Shouto’s face. “Don’t believe he’d throw away his own flesh and blood while his fucking _wife_ just stood there and did nothing?”

“I…” Shouto tried to get words out, but they seemed stuck in his throat. He shook his head in denial again, trying harder to speak, “Tou--Tou--Touya…”

“I’m _DABI_ now, you little fuck! That other person died when he was nine! Left in a hospital to rot!” He smacked Shouto over the head with a heavy hand as he raged. 

Izuku felt slow and stupid, but he cwouldn't deny what he was hearing or seeing. Shouto knew Dabi...or had, a long time ago. Dabi was Endeavor’s flesh and blood? That meant that Dabi and Shouto were...at least half brothers, didn’t it? That could explain the horror on Shouto’s face. If he hadn’t seen his brother since he was a small child, how would he be expected to recognize him a decade or more later? Had he been scarred like that as a child, the way Shouto had been scarred? Izuku’s heart was beating so loudly in his own ears, he was surprised the others couldn’t hear it.

“I don’t give a fuck about a hundred million yen,” Dabi snarled. “I want to see Endeavor _devastated_.”

The room lit up blue in an instant, and Izuku knew he was out of time to think, and needed to _act_. Ignoring the pain, he flooded his body with One For All, counting on the light from Dabi’s blaze to cover any glow his quirk might emit. 

“Full Cowling!” He shouted to himself.

Izuku ripped his arms and legs free from his bindings with almost comical ease, distorting the chair he’d been sitting in to a twisted mess in doing so. He was on his feet and in between Dabi and Shouto in a split second, diving for the man intent on hurting on murder. He lunged low for Dabi’s knees, knocking him backwards as he was throwing a massive fireball, causing it to fling away and around toward the ceiling.

Using the splints on his arms and hands as weapons, he began to swing his limbs, beating every inch of Dabi he could land a hit on. The reverberations from the strikes sent shocks of pain up his arms, but he ignored it, even when the splints cracked and broke apart under the bandages. His only thought was to protect Shouto and stop this villain from murder.

Chaos seemed to erupt as the room filled with steam and smoke. Shouto had automatically created a wall of ice to protect himself, likely believing Izuku to still be conscious, and the intense heat from the flames that licked the ice were causing steam. Conversely, years of spilled drinks and shelves of alcohol are very flammable. The wildly thrown flames ignited the floorboards and bar, rapidly spreading to the walls, meeting up with the engulfed ceiling.

Izuku could not hold back the scream of pain as burning hands hit his chest. Dabi pushed him off if himself, burning Izuku’s already bare chest in the process with a sickening hiss and rancid smell. Dabi scrambled backward, then turned and fled down the hallway, as did Spinner and Magne. The blaze soon engulfed nearly the entire bar, and the flames were rising to the second floor. No fire alarms sounded. No sprinklers sprang to life. Just the roar of blue flames as Izuku crawled through smoke and steam toward where Shouto had been restrained. 

“Izuku!” Shouto’s shout sounded almost desperate as Izuku fell to the ground, not able to get his arms to obey him, anymore.

“Are you okay?” Izuku managed to ask, as Shouto gave himself a frozen coating and hauled Izuku into his arms.

“You’re asking about me? You’re crazy!” Shouto shouted over the noise. “I’m gonna get us out of here.” 

Izuku’s vision was suddenly obscured by ice. Shouto had put him in a hollow shell of thick ice to protect him from the flames as he carried him out on an ice slide. It was only a couple of minutes before Shouto removed the ice from Izuku’s body, leaving a cold puddle on the sun-warmed street.. Sirens could be heard close by, and there were a few people watching the building burn from across the street. It was strange to Izuku that it was daytime; his sense of time distorted from being unconscious and indoors.

“Talk about a cliche place for a villain hideout,” Izuku observed jokingly, looking around at the rundown buildings, faded signs and littered street. Definitely not a desirable part of town, wherever they were. None of the people watching made any move to help them. “At least we’re still in Japan.” He was lying propped up against Shouto’s chest, with strong arms around him to keep him steady.

“Izuku…” Shouto was breathing heavily, and there were tears in his eyes from both smoke and emotion. “Thank you.”

Izuku’s eyes felt heavy, and his stomach was churning. “I don’t feel so good.”

Shouto laughed at that, almost hysterically, and his arms tightened around Izuku.. 

“I like your other laugh better,” Izuku murmured, fighting to keep from passing out.

“Me, too.” Shouto told him, trying and failing to wipe his eyes against his own shoulder.

The firefighters and paramedics found them sitting in the middle of the street like that when they pulled up, Izuku propped up against Shouto’s frozen chest, with Shouto sobbing and laughing at the same time into Izuku’s hair. Izuku could only think, “We’re saved,” before he finally succumbed to darkness again.

The smell alone was enough to tip him off. “Oh Gods, not the hospital,” Izuku groaned as soon as he woke. He opened his eyes to find Gran staring hard at him.

“If my hair wasn’t already white, boy…” Gran said. 

“I think I’ve heard this line before,” Izuku said, clearing his dry throat. 

“How do you feel?” Gran asked, reaching over to press the call button to alert a nurse.

Izuku took a moment to take stock of everything. “I feel...good? That can’t be right. How many meds do they have me on?”

“Not as many as you would be if Recovery Girl wasn’t on speed dial,” Gran told him dryly. “You’ve been out for two days and some change.”

“Two days?” Izuku asked, wondering if that was really all that surprising. “What about Shouto?”

“You can ask him yourself,” Gran said. He reached over to yank away the curtain around the bed to reveal his friend ensconced in a bed directly across from his. Fuyumi was seated at his bedside looking ragged.

“Hey,” Shouto said, raising a hand in a small wave.

“Hey,” Izuku returned with a small smile. “You okay?

“Mostly exhaustion. I've been asleep, too,” Shouto said briefly. “A lot has happened since…”

“I guess it would,” Izuku said with a sad nod. He didn’t want to say anything about Dabi in front of others until he’d had a chance to talk privately with Shouto. “Thanks for getting me out of there. I really screwed up this time, huh?”

“What are you talking about?” Shouto asked.

“I set the place _on fire_, in case you forgot.” Izuku told him, wondering if Shouto was actually as okay as he looked.

“A villain set the place on fire. You stopped him from killing me in the process,” Shouto corrected.

“As entertaining as this all is, the police would obviously like to hear from both of you,” Gran said dryly. “It sounds like a hell of a story.”

He got up and left the room, presumably to call Tsukauchi. A nurse came in shortly after, and briskly checked Izuku’s vitals and let him sip some water. A trip to the bathroom later, and Izuku felt tired, again.

“How long have you been awake?” Izuku asked Shouto as the nurse helped him settle back on the bed. 

“A couple of hours. I guess being drugged isn’t the same as real sleep. On top of that, we were already worn out from the training camp and everything that happened in the woods.” Todoroki told him.

“I can’t believe the villains found you!” Fuyumi said, sounding stressed. “Father is furious, of course.”

“I’m sure a lot of parents are going to be upset,” Izuku said. “No one...no one _died_, did they?”

He braced for bad news, and was actually starting to tremble until Fuyumi answered, “No. No one died. There were some injuries, but you and Aizawa were the worst, and that’s bad enough.”

“How is sensei?” Izuku wanted to know. “That nomu pounded him into the ground.”

“He’ll make a full recovery, but he’ll have some scars, I’m sure,” Fuyumi said. “That’s all I know. You’ll have to get the rest of that information from people with more access to information about all this.”

“And you’re okay, Shouto?” Izuku asked, just to make sure.

“I’m fine. Recovery Girl fixed me right away. Don’t you care about how _you_ are?” Shouto said incredulously. “You keep asking me if I’m okay, but you had both arms badly broken and dislocated, burns, cracked ribs, _more_ burns and some internal bleeding. I don’t even know how you did it.”

“My body just moved on it’s own.I guess...I just did what needed to be done? It hurt, but I figured it was better than dying or seeing you or Kouta or anyone else be killed.” Izuku explained. “I’m beyond happy that Recovery Girl was able to help me, but even if she couldn’t it would be worth it to save you.”

Izuku realized belatedly how that sounded and blushed.

“Save both of you, I mean. Is Kouta okay? Does anyone know?”

“The kid’s fine,” Gran said, coming back into the room with a tray. 

Izuku was being allowed to have soup and soft foods for his first meal in days, just to make sure his system was okay.

“What about…” Izuku began.

“I already ate,” Shouto assured him, guessing correctly what Izuku was going to say.

With a nod, he picked up his spoon and tried a bite of gelatin. The taste on his tongue triggered his appetite, and he made short work of the rest of the meal while Gran filled him in on what had happened while he’d been held captive.

The students had all been taken back to UA, where there were a lot of worried parents waiting. Bakugou, who the villains had attempted to take and then been forced to release, was allowed home only with a police escort, being seen as a possible future target. News crews had already lined up at the gates of the school and had attempted to interview students and parents as they went home. The students exposed to the poison gas had been taken to the nearest hospital, along with their teacher and Pixie-Bob. So far, Ragdoll was still among the missing. It had been hoped that she was being held with Izuku and Shouto, but there had been no sign of her in the building after firefighters had searched it. 

“There _was_ one thing, kid,” Gran said quietly. “They found...they found a body in the basement.”

Izuku dropped his water cup from suddenly nerveless fingers. Fuyumi went to pick it up and mop up the mess, but he couldn’t focus on anything but what Gran was telling him. 

“There was a room set up down there like a fancy bedroom, but with hospital equipment. The person they found looked like… well, they said he looked like he was covered in scars, and was terribly thin. Possibly a long-time prisoner.They said that they’d have to do an autopsy, but that it could be either smoke inhalation that did him in, or water pouring on the medical machines, and he got electrocuted. Plus, part of the ceiling fell on him and crushed his legs.”

Fuyumi had stopped drying the floor and was looking up at Gran with eyes almost as wide as Izuku’s.

“It was him,” Izuku said. “It was All For One. I talked to him a little.”

“Thought so,” Gran said. The old man heaved a huge sigh, then bowed his head. His shoulders shook.

Izuku put out a hand to Gran, thinking that the stress had finally made his guardian lose it, but then drew his hand back when the old man threw his head back and laughed.. 

“HA! Take that you old bastard! No glorious death on the battlefield for you! You met your end alone in a dirty hole in the ground like you deserved. Good riddance you rat’s ass!” He said loudly, as if talking to the heavens. Then he noticed Fuyumi. “Pardon my language.”

“All For…” Fuyumi whispered, putting a hand to her mouth in surprise. “He’s the one who killed All Might. Is he the one who took Shouto and Midoriya? Why? Why would he do that?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Detective Tsukauchi said from the doorway.

The man looked exhausted. His shirt was rumpled, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and and his jacket over his arm. His eyes looked bruised from lack of sleep, and there was a couple of days worth of stubble on his chin.

“Hey, tough guy,” Tsukauchi greeted Izuku with a sad smile. “You scared the hell out of us.”

“Sorry,” Izuku said wryly. “I didn’t mean to.”

They smiled tiredly at each other with familiarity. 

“I didn’t come to question you just yet. There are some very sensitive bits of information that will need to be talked about in private. I just wanted to come and make sure you’re both okay. There are officers stationed outside the door, and at the hospital entrances.”

“Thanks. I’m doing okay. Shouto got me out of there...he was amazing.” Izuku said, looking at his friend.

“You’re both big heroes. A lot has happened, but I’m afraid most of the villains got away. We found Muscular roaming the forest, looking worse for wear, an escaped convict named Moonfish was half-dead, and they found a kid with a gas mask and a gun that was making the poison gas. We did manage to apprehend the one called Kurogiri, shortly before you two broke out of there. He’s being held in Tartarus with quirk suppressors keeping him from teleporting away. Shigaraki was seen at the same time, but he slipped away. Still, there are photos of all of the villains on every news broadcast and social media outlets. They won’t be able to go out in public for a long, long while without risking capture.”

That was good to know, at least. Somehow, Izuku still didn’t feel very comforted. Judging by the look that Shouto shared with him, he didn’t feel good about it, either. What could they do, though? 

“The doctor wants both of you to stay for one more night for observation, and you can go home tomorrow The detective and come question you at the house, or we can go to the station,”” Gran told him. “Classes have been cancelled for all students for the next week while security measures are revamped and implemented at Yuuei. There’s been an outcry from the public, and it’s a PR nightmare ever since the press got word of the attack on the camp.”.

“What day it?” Izuku didn’t know exactly how long they’d been held in the bar.

They’d left for camp on Saturday, had their first real day of training on Sunday, then another. So, they’d been abducted on Monday night, then? 

“It’s Friday,” Gran told him with a sigh. “It seems like it’s been a month, but it’s only been a few days.”

Gran and Fuyumi stayed until visiting hours were over. Hitoshi dropped in for an hour at the end and brought Izuku a couple of teen magazines with advice about love in them, making Izuku scowl and blush before shoving them under his blanket to hide them. When it was finally quiet again, Izuku felt sleepy once more.

“Izuku,” Shouto said tentatively from across the room. “Thank you for not mentioning my...for not saying anything about Dabi. I don’t know if Fuyumi knows anything about what happened to him, or if knows he’s alive.”

“I figured I’d ask you if you wanted me to mention any of that to anyone. I mean...the police are going to ask about why they took you, in particular.” Izuku said. “I don’t want to lie, but it seems like something you should talk to your family about...or, I don’t know...a lawyer or your dad’s PR people. It’s going to be a huge deal, if the press finds out about it. They could just say it was for the ransom.”

“I know,” Shouto said, sounding pensive. “It’s almost all I’ve been able to think about since I woke up.”

“If they ask me about it, how about I just tell them to ask you?” Izuku said. “Then you can decide who to trust, and with how much.”

“That’s the hard part. After everything, I don’t even know if I can trust my own father. I thought...I thought Touya was dead. Like...really dead. I remember them telling me his quirk went crazy and consumed him. They didn’t talk about it after that. I was only about five, so I hardly remember.”

“No offense, but that’s fucked up,” Izuku said bluntly. “Well, I can tell you that I trust Tsukauchi. He’s helped me a _lot_, and he’s an old friend of Gran’s, and was a friend of All Might, too. I’ve known him for years. I’m sure if you wanted to tell him about it, he’d listen and do his best to protect that information.”

“Does he know you’re All Might’s secret love child?” Shouto asked quietly.

“Wh-_WHAT_?” Izuku squawked, flailing in his effort to sit up more fully to see if Shouto was making a joke.

“I won’t tell anyone. It’s just...your power is a lot like his, Shinsou called you Small Might, and his former teacher is your guardian…It would make sense to keep it a secret.”

“Sorry to burst your bubble, but All Might was not my father. My father was Midoriya Hisashi, a normal businessman who traveled a lot. He got sick on a business trip and died when I was really little. I have pictures, and I look a lot like him. Hitoshi calls me that because he likes to tease me about being short.”

“So, all of that is just a coincidence?” Shouto asked skeptically. 

“I can say with certainty that I am not All Might’s son.” Izuku confirmed firmly.

“Hmmm. If you say so,” Shouto said, not sounding convinced. 

Izuku reclined back onto his pillow with a laugh. “I do say so. Now, I’m still tired, even after sleeping for two days.”

“That’s because Recovery Girl came to see you a few hours ago,” Shouto said. “Fuyumi said she treated us both after she was sure that we had enough energy stored up to handle it. You probably need to rebuild your strength from that, since you had a lot more healing to do..”

That was the last thing that Izuku heard as he dropped off to a peaceful (exhausted) sleep. If he dreamed, he was too tired to remember it in the morning. When he woke, Shouto was sitting up with a breakfast tray in front of him, and a magazine open beside him. 

Magazine? Shit! He felt around under his blankets, but couldn't find the teen magazines that Hitoshi had brought him the night before.

“Good morning,” Shouto said, seeing him moving. “Your breakfast tray is right there, on the rolling table.”

“Good morning,” Izuku answered, automatically. “What are you reading?” 

Shouto blushed slightly and shrugged. “These were on the floor by your bed when I got up to go to the bathroom. I was bored; I hope you don’t mind.”

“Nah,” Izuku said, trying not to be so embarrassed. “Hitoshi likes to tease me by giving me weird stuff. I don’t normally buy a lot of magazines that don’t have manga in them.”

“This one’s interesting,” Shouto said, holding up a teen fashion magazine. “There’s an article here about famous or popular cake shops, and there’s one near my mother’s hospital. I was thinking it might be nice to take her something from there.”

Relieved that Shouto didn’t think it was weird for Izuku to have the kind of magazine that targets teen girls, he nodded and pulled his tray closer. “That’s a nice idea. Hitoshi said they’d be sending our stuff back to us once the investigation at the campsite was done, so you can still give her any of the stuff you wrote for her, too.”

“I think…” Shouto said after a moment. “I think I’d like to talk to your detective.”

“He’s really nice,” Izuku told him reassuringly. “I can be there with you, if you want. You could also talk to him at my house. If you want to bring your father, or if you don’t want to tell him at all is up to you. I don’t think a parent has to be present if you’re the one asking to talk to the police, instead of the other way around.”

“Thanks. I’m not really sure how to handle it, I guess,” Shouto admitted.

“I don’t blame you. You have a pretty complicated family situation, and it sounds like it could get more complicated once this gets out. I mean...you could tell the detective, and if he feels like it needs your father’s attention, then they could probably make it seem like they just happened to learn Dabi’s real identity during the investigation. You know what I mean? It doesn’t have to come specifically from you.”

Shouto nodded absently, processing everything while he ate in silence. Izuku didn’t want to disturb his train of thought, so he ate in silence, as well. His phone had been smashed when he’d been rescuing Kouta, and his notebooks were back at the training camp, so Izuku didn’t have a whole lot to do. Since Shouto didn’t seem to be reading them, he hopped out of bed with a wince at the stiffness and slight ache in his arms and shoulders and went to retrieve the magazine that Shouto didn’t have open on his bed. Shouto just nodded when Izuku gave him a questioning look, and he retreated to sit in the chair beside his bed.

He looked at the cover of the magazine, and tried not blush in embarrassment at the totally cliche article title.

_NOTICE ME, SENPAI!  
How to tell if your crush is into you!_

“I am so going to kill Hitoshi,” Izuku muttered as he ran a hand down his face.

He didn’t get to investigate the magazine any further, because a nurse came in at that moment. “I’m told you’ll be going home today, so I’m going to remove your bandages, okay?”

She drew the curtain around the bed, and Izuku followed her directions to pull the hospital gown down away from his chest. It didn’t take long for her to unwrap his arms. They didn’t look as bad as he expected, seeing how badly damaged they must have been, but the right one in particular was pretty scarred up in places. They were stiff as the nurse worked them through a range of motions. 

“If you don’t mind my saying so,” the nurse said as he rubbed his wrists and fingers, “The damage to your arms was beyond bad. Seeing your charts from other times, it looked as though a bomb had gone off in your arms each time, and this time it was like a cluster of them exploded in there all at once.”

“My quirk has a wicked backlash,” Izuku said with a grimace at the description. 

“Most people have natural limiters that keep them from using enough power to actually hurt them, but in times of extreme distress or panic, your body had override them. It looks like that’s what happened here. If Recovery Girl hadn’t come when she did, you might have lost the use of right arm, completely and diminished the use of your left.” She scolded.

Izuku nodded, letting that sink in. He didn’t regret doing what he had to do, but it might have cost him nearly everything he’d worked so hard for. It was a sobering thought. He would have to find new ways to fight, to give his arms a break (no pun intended).

“Your ribs have a lot of tape, so this might sting a little,” the nurse warned him briskly before ripping the tape off of one large section across his abdomen in a smooth motion.

Izuku hissed a bit, but didn’t flinch as his skin was freed, along with all the fine hairs that had been there. That turned out to be the worst of the tape at the bottom of the bandages. The tape on his back being ripped off felt almost good, in a weird sort of way, like having his back scratched. He supposed it might be because of how scraped up it had been from the Beast’s Forest, and then Recovery Girl’s healing had probably left a lot of itchy useless scabs behind. 

Then she reached the top of his chest, where the tape had gone over one of his nipples. He let out an unmanly yelp when that was torn off and rubbed at it gingerly with a scowl..

“Sorry about that, but the burn made it hard to put the tape anywhere else,” the nurse explained. “It was a pretty deep third degree. Without Recovery Girl, it would have needed grafts.”

Izuku looked down to see the damage for the first time, and sighed. There were two vivid hand marks on his torso: one on his left pectoral and one over the left side of his ribs, where Dabi had shoved him away in his bid to escape. The skin was very red, slightly puckered, and shiny.

“It could be worse,” he told the nurse philosophically, who was looking at him as if she’d expected a strong emotional reaction. “Thank the powers that be that it was just my chest, and not Shouto’s head.”

At that, there was a sudden clatter and the sound of footsteps. Shouto shoved the curtain aside and looked like he was struggling to contain his temper. When he saw Izuku’s chest, he froze, and his chin wobbled slightly as his fists clenched. The nurse scolded him about patient privacy, but Izuku waved her off, and Shouto just ignored her.

“That. That’s _my_ fault,” Shouto gritted out between clenched teeth. “He did that because of _me_.”

“He did this because he’s a villain,” Izuku told him firmly, reaching out to put a hand on his arm. “Sound familiar? Isn’t that what you said when I blamed myself for the fire?”

“That was different,” Shouto said, some of the tension leaving his shoulders as he stepped a bit closer.

“Really? How?” Izuku asked patiently.

“It just is,” Shouto answered stubbornly. He stared at the marks his brother had made, emotions flitting one after another over his face. 

Izuku managed a chuckle at that. “It isn’t. It’s the same. I won’t blame myself for the fire, and you won’t blame yourself for this. Deal?”

They both knew it wasn’t so easy to let go of feelings of guilt and inadequacy, but it helped them both to know that they were the only ones blaming themselves.

When the situation looked diffused, the nurse helped Izuku back into the sleeves of his gown and excused herself. Shouto sat in the seat by Izuku’s bed so they could talk comfortably.

“Hey, Shouto? Have you… have you ever been to counselling?” Izuku asked, hoping he wasn’t being too invasive?

“For what?” Shouto asked, as if it were a foreign concept.

“Well...for anything. You’ve had a lot of trauma to deal with for most of your life. Has your family ever had someone talk to you about it?” Izuku probed.

“No...not really. I think some doctors talked to me after my eye got injured, but nothing like what you’re talking about,” Shouto told him simply.

“Would you...like to?” Izuku asked carefully. “I’ve been seeing a therapist since I was nine or ten. I was uh… bullied a lot when I was little, then i got my quirk really late, then my mom was killed. It was good to just have someone to talk to who could make sense of everything, and listen or offer advice. I still see her sometimes. Heck, Gran’s probably already booked me an appointment with her because of everything that happened this week.” 

“I don’t think my father would let me,” Shouto answered bluntly. “He doesn’t like to talk about feelings, and thinks that they make you weak.”

Izuku sighed sadly at hearing that, even though he had expected as much.

“I don’t think you’re weak!” Shouto said quickly, possibly misunderstanding Izuku’s sigh. “You’re unbelievably strong...and not just physically.”

“Thanks,” Izuku said wryly. “But… did you know that the school offers counselling? Nezu told me. You might be able to talk to someone without your father’s permission. If you want. You obviously don’t have to. I just know it’s helped me, and you had a huge thing land in your lap this week, and… shutting up now. Sorry. I tend to talk too much. I just… wanted you to know.”

“I didn’t know,” Shouto said thoughtfully. He looked intrigued by the idea.

“Well. Now you do,” Izuku said awkwardly. “As one of the class reps, I can find out more about it for you, if you want. I have a feeling that the counsellors will be busy after all this.”

Shouto huffed out what might have been a laugh. “You might be right.”

“Hey! Do you have your phone?” Izuku asked suddenly.

“Yes. I don’t know how, but it was still in my pocket when we got out of there. The battery was dead, but my sister had a charging cord in her purse.

“Bring it over!” Izuku prompted.

Shouto looked confused, but did as he was asked. Izuku patted the bed, indicating that Shouto should sit next to him, then held took the phone from him and held it out for a selfie. Both boys had matching scars on their cheeks from the battle with stain, thin white lines that were nearly invisible from more than a meter away, but they showed up in the picture. They had messy hair, and it was obvious they were in hospital gowns; the IV pole and heart rate monitor machines were visible in the background, but they looked healthy enough. Izuku’s face was a bit pale, making his freckles stand out, and Shouto wasn’t quite smiling, but it was a good picture, overall. Izuku held up his fingers in a victory sign.

“Send it to the class group chat, so everyone can see we’re okay,” Izuku said, handing the phone back to his friend. “And send me a copy. When I get my new phone, it should come through.”

Shouto posted the picture, and the chat immediately sprang to life, with a dozen messages appearing in quick succession. Everyone had been waiting for word, apparently, and had been keeping their phones close. Shouto leaned closer to Izuku so that they could both see the screen to read the messages. Their friends explained that the kids who had been affected by the gas were all awake and going to be perfectly fine. Shouto told them all about the demise of Izuku’s phone, and thanked them all for the well wishes.

Through the chat, they learned that Hitoshi, Uraraka and even Bakugou and Tenya had been working on a plan to go out looking for their captive friends, when they’d gotten word that they’d managed to get free by themselves. They had even gone to pester Yaoyorozu in her hospital room, because they’d heard that she and a student from 1-B had managed to plant a tracker on the nomu. Unfortunately for them, Present Mic had been nearby and heard them, and put an end to their plans with a relayed message from Aizawa that he would expel them all if they tried it.

“They were really worried,” Shouto said, sounding surprised.

“Of course they were,” Izuku told him, bumping his shoulder into Shouto’s softly. “They’re our friends.”

“Even Bakugou?” Shouto teased.

“Well...miracles can happen,” Izuku said with a smile. “I’m sure he’ll go back to being a jerk soon enough.”

That was how Endeavor found them when he came into the room, no flames wreathing his face for once. “You don’t have your own bed?” he asked pointedly.

“I do. I was sharing my phone with Izuku, since his was broken,” Shouto said, standing and walking across to his own bed.

“Fuyumi sent you clothes,” Endeavor said, putting a bag in Shouto’s hands. “The doctor says you can leave. Get dressed.”

Shouto sighed and pulled the curtain around his bed, blocking his father out while he changed.

“You seem to be a trouble magnet,” Endeavor said to Izuku, sounding disapproving. 

“I hear that a lot,” Izuku replied, managing to keep his voice light, and not betray the feelings that were surging through him, knowing he had a son that he’d written off for whatever reason.

Endeavor grunted, but made no other reply. Instead, he turned his attention to Shouto, whose feet could be seen slipping into his shoes behind the curtain. “You have an appointment to talk to a police detective this afternoon; I want to be debriefed first.”

The curtain pulled back, and Shouto stood dressed in khaki pants and a collared shirt, looking for all the world as though it was just another normal day, except for the bedhead. Izuku thought that he even made that look good, somehow.

“Bye,” Shouto said, holding up a hand to wave.

“Bye,” Izuku said. “If you need to reach me, send me an email, and I can read it on my computer at home.”

Shouto nodded and followed his father out.

It took a few minutes to realize it, but Izuku found no sign of the magazine that Shouto had borrowed from him. Maybe he wanted to keep it for the address to the cake shop? His musings were cut short by Gran appeared with a bag with clothes. “I saw Todoroki leaving,” he said by way of greeting. “I guess you know you can go home now.” 

“Thank goodness,” Izuku said, not bothering to draw the curtain; Gran had already seen him at his worst by this time. “I want to get home and bathe.”

“Yuuei sent a car for you. Reporters are swarming, again. We’re going to have to send the neighbors all fruit baskets or something for all the trouble,” Gran said. 

“My phone got smashed,” izuku said, pulling off the gown now that he had pants on. “Can we stop to get a new one?”

“Holy hell, boy!” Gran said, brow furrowing. “Your chest!”

Ah. The scars. Izuku merely nodded and pulled the t-shirt that said, _sweater_ on the front over his head. “Yeah. Dabi got me good.”

Gran began muttering about no good villains and bull headed kids and mixing in swear words here and there as he handed Izuku a pair of slip on sneakers. “We can get you a new phone on the way, I guess. There aren’t likely to be reporters in the shops.”

Getting a new phone was a fairly easy process, since he went with the same carrier and got the same model. They even downloaded all of his apps and his photos and information from the cloud. Within moments, his phone began to ping and vibrate non-stop as his missed messages from the past four days poured in, startling the salesman until another employee said, “Hey! You were just on the news! Didn’t you just get kidnapped?!”

“Yeah, well, I got free?” he said sheepishly. 

The girl tried to get information out of him excitedly, but Gran just slapped down a credit card and then got them out of there as soon as the receipt printed.

There were police parked in front of the house when the car dropped them off at home, keeping the reporters away as they ignored all of the questions being thrown at them. However, Izuku flinched when one of them shouted, “Is it true you had to kill one of your captors?”

“Don’t say anything,” Gran told him quietly as he kept a hand on Izuku’s back and propelled him through the front door.

“Welcome home!” Hitoshi said from the living room as soon as they closed the door.

“How did you--never mind,” Gran said, shaking his head. He kicked off his shoes and stepped up into the house. “Another cat, huh?”

Hitoshi merely shrugged. “It’s a long story. Her name is Stompers! Gomi loves her! Akubozu must be hiding somewhere; he won’t even come out to meet her.”

Gran sighed. “I… I found Akubozu a couple of days ago...he passed away in his sleep.”

Izuku felt the tears well in his eyes at the news. This, on top of everything else, was too much. “I’m sorry, Gran. He was a good cat,” he said with a tremble in his voice.

Gran looked a little misty eyed, as well. “He was. He had a long life and went peacefully; that’s as good as anyone can hope for.”

“I’m sorry, guys,” Hitoshi said solemnly. It didn’t matter that the old cat had hated him; Hitoshi had still liked the cat.

“Well, at least Gomi won’t be so lonely, now. He’s been crying since you two went off to camp, and it’s only gotten worse.” Gran said, tucking his grief away for now. 

Izuku felt the first tears fall onto his cheeks. He sat down on the couch beside Hitoshi and scrubbed his hands over his face. Hitoshi put a hand on his back, and Gomi mewled and trotted over to Izuku to climb the leg of his pants and worm his way into his lap.

“You’ve got an appointment with your counselor on Monday morning,” Gran said quietly. 

Izuku nodded, taking deep breaths to fight back the sob that wanted to crawl up his throat. “Thanks,” he murmured. “I can always count on you.”

“I’ll leave you two alone,” he said gruffly, and retreated up the stairs.

Hitoshi simply sat quietly with Izuku until his friend regained his composure, then introduced him properly to Stompers, a big calico can with too many toes on its front paws. “I think Recovery Girl really likes her, if you don’t think you’re ready for another cat,” he said gently. 

“No, it’s all right,” Izuku answered, stroking the cat’s back, admiring the splotches of orange, white and black fur. “Look at that...she’s got Shouto eyes.” The cat blinked up at Izuku with one blue eye and one green. “Sort of, anyway.”

“So… A lot of stuff happened.” Hitoshi’s extreme understatement made Izuku snort.

“Too much stuff,” Izuku agreed.

“Wanna talk about it?” Hitoshi asked. “I mean, I have something I need to tell you, but it doesn’t have to be now. I just think… it might be helpful?”

Izuku eyed him with confusion. “Helpful?”

Hitoshi blew out a breath and ran his hands over the fluffy indigo mess he called his hair. “Maybe? It might freak you out, though, and I don’t want to do that, especially with everything else on your plate.”

“You want to tell me something that will be helpful, but also might freak me out?” Izuku wondered if this was supposed to make sense.

“I… know your secret,” Hitoshi finally said, “about you having All Might’s powers.”

Izuku just stared at him for a long moment while Hitoshi held his breath and watched for signs of panic.

“What do you think you know?” Izuku asked quietly. He didn’t want to freak out, yet. For all he knew, he also thought that All Might was his real dad.

“I had a feeling about it for a while, after I found out you were there when All Might died - then you suddenly got a quirk, but then the other day...God, it was last week… I woke up while you and Gran were talking, and I heard you say that All Might gave you something. You didn’t finish what you were going to say, but I’m pretty sure you were going to say_ ‘his quirk_’. It would make a lot of sense.”

Izuku stared at him for a bit longer, biting his lip and trying to decide if this was good or bad. “I never wanted to keep such a big secret,” he said finally, going with his gut instinct. 

“Dude! I get it. I totally get it. Something like that is _huge_. If anyone bad found out, it could be a disaster for a lot of reasons. I’ve had a while to think about it, and I wasn’t sure if I should let you know that I know. Then villains attacked and you got taken and I just thought that if you knew that I knew, then you’d be able to talk about it without worrying about saying the wrong thing, or having to leave out important details.”

“Thanks, Tosh. I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t want to put you in danger.” Izuku felt a bit of the weight on his shoulders lift. He didn’t know the whole story, about One for all and All For One and that the power could be passed along...and he would keep that a secret for the time being. The less he knew about it, the safer he would be.”

“I won’t tell a soul, of course,” Hitoshi said.

“You’re only one of the few who know. My mom knew, of course. Gran was the one who told me and my mom what was happening, when the quirk started showing up. Detective Tsukauchi knows, and Recovery Girl, Nezu and All Might’s old sidekick, Sir Nighteye. My therapist, though she sees a lot of heroes I guess, so she’s used to hearing sensitive information and has been thoroughly screened and background checked. Gran told Aizawa recently, but I haven’t had a chance to talk to him about it, yet.”

“Those all sound like people who can help you, so that’s good,” Hitoshi reasoned.

“And Shigaraki knows.”

“What.” Hitoshi blinked and then blinked again, trying to process what he’d just heard.

“It’s a long story, but his teacher figured it out, because he was All Might’s nemesis, and told Shigaraki. That’s why they snatched me.”

“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck,” Hitoshi said in a low voice.

“Yeah.” Izuku agreed.

“Do you think he’ll, you know, tell people?” Hitoshi asked.

Izuku shrugged. “He’s crazy; I have no idea what he’ll do. I just know what I have to do, and that’s get stronger, and be on guard. I’ll be telling Tsukauchi about it when I give him my statement. There’s going to be what goes in the official statement for anyone to read, and the one just for people who know what’s really going on.”

“Yikes. Your life sure is complicated,” Hitoshi said, shaking his head. 

“Sorry. Yours just got more complicated, too. Because of me, you’re going to be in more danger.” Izuku pointed out.

“Not necessarily. I mean, if they decide to target me for whatever reason, it’ll be because I’m your best friend, not because of anything I know. Especially if Shigaraki already knows the biggest secret.”

“Hmmm. You could be right. Just...promise me you’ll keep being careful.”

“Always,” Hitoshi said, offering his fist.

Izuku smiled sadly, and bumped his friend’s fist with his own.


	25. Changes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following Izuku and Shouto's kidnapping, some changes have to made for everyone's safety.

A lot of things happened in the week after the disastrous training camp.

The tracker that Yaoyorozu had made had led the heroes to a warehouse not far from the bar where Izuku and Shouto had been held captive. There had been hope that the villains who had fled would have retreated to that location, but luck was not on the heroes' side. The place was almost devoid of human life. What they _had_ found, was holding tanks full of nomu that were in some kind of suspended animation, their exposed brains floating that the tops of a murky fluid. None of them was responsive at all to being removed, bound and carted off. Several of the tanks had been empty, and they could only hope that those had been occupied by the nomu they had already fought in Hosu. The one that had been in the training camp was not among them.

The only truly good news that came from the warehouse raid was that Ragdoll had been found in one of the tanks, though it had been empty of liquid. It appeared that she had been dumped there in a hurry, and had a terrible head wound. She was unresponsive, but they were told that she would make a full recovery. It was thought that All For One had been planning to steal Ragdoll’s quirk, and there simply hadn’t been time for him to do so. This gibed with Izuku’s account that All For One had expected to reclaim his regeneration quirk, once the nomu had been ‘repaired’. He was probably waiting to both at the same time.

Of course, the only way Izuku and his friends learned about most of this was from Shouto, who told them what he’d heard from his father during training. Gran had confirmed a lot of it, as well, knowing that Izuku did better with more information than less.

Press conferences with Eraserhead, Vlad and Nezu took place, assuring the public that Yuuei was taking every measure to prevent anything like this from happening again. They accepted blame that wasn’t theirs to shoulder, and worked hard to redeem themselves in the eyes of the people of Japan and especially the parents of the students.

The ones who had been affected by the soporific gas all woke up, physically none the worse for their experience. Psychological evaluations were given to all of them, and no one seemed to have suffered any irreversible trauma. Counseling was promised, and would be given to any student who asked for it. 

Uraraka had gone to stay at Ashido’s home, once her luggage had been returned to her, since it would look ‘unwholesome’ for unrelated students of opposite genders to be staying under the same roof. 

It was after his therapy appointment on Monday (which Izuku had sorely needed and was very grateful for) that Izuku and Gran sat down together for tea. Aizawa and Present Mic showed up at the house, dressed in suits and ties and looking...weird, in Izuku’s opinion. Good! But weird. Aizawa had a scar under his right eye that hadn’t been there before, but otherwise he looked okay. Gran wasn’t surprised when Izuku returned with them after answering the door.

Once everyone was seated around the kitchen table with tea in front of them, Izuku asked, “You’re all making me nervous. What’s going on?”

“We’re here in an official capacity as Yuuei staff,” Aizawa told him. “In light of everything that’s happened over the past week or so…”

“Oh, God! I’m not being expelled, am I? Say I’m not being expelled!” Izuku’s heart started racing and his breaths were getting shorter as panic started to set in. What would he do if he got ejected from Yuuei? Would he still be allowed to attend a different hero school? Did they have homeschooling for heroes? 

“You’re not being expelled!” Gran said sharply, with a little more volume than he would normally use. “Calm down!”

Izuku nodded and tried to take deep breaths.

“Why would you think you were being expelled?” Aizawa asked, wondering if the kid had still something _more_ to confess to add to the current mess that was Aizawa’s life.

“I...I...I fought muscular before you gave students permission to engage in battle!” he said worriedly. “Then I attacked Dabi when we were in that bar!”

“Self defense is a perfectly reasonable and legal use of your quirk,” Aizawa told him evenly. “Anything that happened after you were abducted is _self defense_. Got it?”

Izuku nodded slowly. His teacher was doing it again...bending the rules or pretending something didn’t happen that did. Izuku hadn’t been acting strictly in self defense in either case...not at first. With Muscular, he’d been trying to save Kouta; with Dabi, he’d been protecting Shouto. Was it fair for him to keep getting special treatment? Would he do this for any of his other students? Well, he’d done it for Tosh, but… it seemed that Tosh was a special case to begin with, after seeing him handle Eraserhead’s capture weapon as well as he had.

“We’re here because the school has had to implement some security protocols,” Present Mic explained, taking over. “With you and some of the others being known targets of villains, and in light of the attack on both first year hero classes, some big decisions had to be made.”

“I guess so,” Izuku said, trying not to feel guilty that being All Might’s successor was making so many people work so hard. 

“Long story short, kid, they wanna make Yuuei a boarding school,” Gran said, cutting to the chase. 

“That’s right,” Eraserhead confirmed. “Students will be required to live on campus in newly erected dormitories starting next week.”

“Next week!” Izuku exclaimed. “That’s thirty-three classes! How--”

“Cementos,” Present Mic said simply. “And Power Loader and a few other heroes and craftsmen willing to lend their time and expertise on short notice. Campus will be a bit more crowded, but it’s large, and we can handle it. First years will be closest to the main school building, second years further out, and third years closer to the outskirts.”

“Wow.” Izuku couldn’t think of any other way to put it. “Impressive.”

“Very,” Aizawa said. “Each class will have its own dormitory building, girls and boys in different wings, at least one staff members in a separate apartment on the first floor of each building. It will be an adjustment for everyone.”

“And everyone’s parents and all the teachers are okay with this?” Izuku asked, still processing everything in his mind. Not just thirty classes, but each in their own building? That was a massive undertaking!”

“Unfortunately, they’ll have to be if they want to have a continued relationship with the school. Excepting very special circumstances, this new rule is mandatory,” Present Mic said, sounding sympathetic. “It really is the best option for keeping everyone safe.”

Izuku turned to look at Gran. “Will you be alright living here by yourself?”

Gran snorted. “I was living by myself in a place bigger’n this before we met, remember?”

Izuku remembered. The place had been a dump, in a seedy neighborhood. It probably should have been condemned from what he remembered of its appearance. 

“So… Will you be alright living here by yourself?” Izuku asked cheekily, not especially worried, now that Gran knew how to cook properly and had someone who could come in and clean.

“Smartass,” Gran grumbled at him.

Stompers trotted into the kitchen then and leaped into Aizawa’s lap, followed by Gomi who climbed the man’s leg to compete for attention. “You are allowed to bring pets, within reason,” his teacher said, automatically petting both cats in turn. “Though you would be completely responsible for feeding and cleaning up after them.”

“If I take them, then Gran would be lonely,” Izuku said, feeling worried about _all_ the household members leaving at once.”

“You can take them,” Gran said with an indulgent smile. “They’re pretty much Hitoshi-kun’s cats, anyway. He’s the one that brought them here.”

Izuku wasn’t sure if Gran was putting on an act to make him feel better or not, but he nodded and decided he could figure it out later.

“So, are you going to be the staff member for 1-A?” Izuku asked.

“Yes. Each homeroom teacher will take charge of the dormitory for their class. It’s possible that another staff member or the spouse of one will also be in residence.” Aizawa explained.

“Security is going to be our number one priority,” Present Mic assured Gran. “There will be cameras, security bots and drones patrolling campus 24/7. Breakfast and dinner will be prepared in the dormitory kitchen by students on a rotating schedule, and weekday lunches will be provided at the cafeteria as normal.”

Questions and details were discussed, and paperwork given explaining everything thin writing, with a code of conduct contract to be signed by each student and their guardians. By the time Eraserhead and Present Mic, left, Izuku had a slight headache and a lot of thinking (and packing) to do.

At dinner that evening, Gran looked pensive.

“I don’t want you moving out, or anything,” Izuku told him flatly when Gran was being quieter than normal. 

“What?” Gran asked, snapping out of his thoughts.

“I don’t want you moving out. This is your home, and it’s where I’ll come back to during holidays and breaks, if we’re allowed. Also after I graduate. I don’t want you telling yourself that I won’t need you, just because I won’t be living here full time.” Izuku looked at Gran sternly, even though the old man had given no indication about what he was feeling or thinking.

Gran just stared at him with his mouth hanging open slightly, as if Izuku had suddenly developed the ability to read minds.

“Unless you don’t feel safe here, or want to get a job at Yuuei and live on campus with us,” Izuku added.

“God in Heaven, _no_,” Gran finally said with a huff. “They couldn’t pay me enough to deal with dozens of teenagers all at once. I’m not going anywhere, if you don’t want me to.”

“I don’t want you to feel like you _have_ to stay, if you have places you want to go, or things you want to do. You’ve been stuck here, taking care of me for a long time...but this _is_ your home, so you don’t have to go anywhere unless you feel like it.”

“Alright, then.” Gran nodded and tucked into his meal without any further discussion on the subject. 

Izuku, satisfied that he’d gotten his point across, also dug in. The next bump in the conversation came while they were doing dishes.

“So, if you’re going to be going off to live in co-ed dorms,” Gran said conversationally. “I guess I have to ask… do we need to have _‘the talk” _before you go?”

“Talk about what?” Izuku asked stupidly, not parsing the sudden shift in conversation.

“Sex,” Gran said bluntly.

Izuku dropped the plate he was drying, absently thankful that it didn’t break when it fell into the sink again with a splash. “_NO!_” he all but shouted.

“What the hell, kid?” Gran said, wiping water from his face.“It’s something you should know at your age!”

“I know all the physical mechanics of it,” Izuku assured him, half panicked. He did _not_ want to have this conversation with Gran. It’d just be too weird. “And I’ve read stuff on the internet.”

“Porn ain’t real sex, kid,” Gran said dryly, giving him a look.

“I wasn’t talking about...about porn!” Izuku squawked, turning multiple shades of red..

“Oooooh! Are we learning about the birds and bees?” Hitoshi asked gleefully as he entered the kitchen, holding a fluffball that didn’t match the colors of either Gomi or Stompers. “Can I join in? My parents couldn’t handle the awkward and just bought me a book!”

“You probably made it deliberately awkward, didn’t you?” Izuku asked with a knowledgeable tone. 

“As if you’re not doing the same,” Gran grumbled.

“Maybe,” Hitoshi said with a devilish grin. "Did Gran find out about your crush, so he’s feeling the need to inform you about what happens when two people love each other very, very much?”

Gran didn’t bother to hold back his beleaguered sigh. “You have a crush? Is it Uraraka?”

“No,” Izuku said, glaring daggers at Tosh. “I do not have a crush on Uraraka.”

“I thought so, too,” Hitoshi told Gran, “but he’s telling the truth. He doesn’t have a crush on Uraraka-chan.”

“Shame,” Gran said. “She’s a nice girl.”

“Somebody please just kill me now,” Izuku muttered, pulling the last dish out of the rinse water to dry. 

“Look, if you’re starting to have feelings for someone, you should know the basics of safe sex,” Gran said, continuing to press the issue. “Pro heroes get a lot of fans and a lot of offers from promiscuous groupies. You don’t want to end up with some sexually transmitted…”

“I know! I know about safe sex! I had health class in middle school! I know about condoms and birth control and all of that, okay? Please. Stop.” Izuku wanted the earth to open up and swallow him when his voice cracked on the last two words.

“Don’t worry, Gran,” Hitoshi said, clearly enjoying their discomfiture. “I’ll lend him the book my parents got me. It’s very...thorough.”

Before Izuku could murder him on the spot, the ball of fur in Hitoshi’s arms wiggled, then _barked_.

“You didn’t,” Gran said eyeing the pile of ash gray curls warily.

“”Yep. Zu messaged me earlier about leaving you alone without even the cats, and he was so worried that I just had to do something! My neighbor’s dog had puppies a few weeks ago and said I could have one. He’s apparently part Pumi and part sneaky neighbor dog.”

“The hell is a Pumi?” Gran asked, watching as Hitoshi set the pup on the floor.

The thing was about the size of Stompers, with gray fluffy curls covering it from head to toe, and perky ears that stood up high on its head, then flopped over on themselves.

“It’s so cute!” Izuku gushed, taking advantage of the distraction to segue out of the embarrassment of moments before. He dropped to his knees to pet it. “And so soft!”

“My neighbor says they don’t shed, but you have to brush them every couple of weeks,” Hitoshi said as if gran wasn’t scowling at him.

The puppy gamboled around the kitchen, sniffing everything in sight, and nipping at Izuku’s fingers playfully. 

“I don’t need a dog,” Gran said stubbornly.

“What if it needs you?” Hitoshi asked, deliberately making his eyes wider and very much like a puppy. “Because they’re not purebred, she doesn’t think they’ll sell, so she has to get rid of them.”

“Oh my god,” Izuku said, clearly already in love, “look at it’s curly little tail!”

“Puppies are a lot of work,” Gran said, glaring at them both.

Izuku scooped the puppy up in his arms and stepped over so Gran could get a better look at it. The Pup was instantly excited and licked Gran’s nose a couple of times before nibbling on it.

“They chew on everything and need to be walked and housebroken,” Gran pointed out.

“She said they’re really smart and easy to train,” Hitoshi countered.

The puppy licked his cheek this time, and started to whine.

“Gran,” Izuku said with even bigger puppy eyes than Hitoshi. “It can be like a new hobby for you!”

“What makes you think I need a new hobby?” Gran grumbled, but also broke down and took the dog that Izuku was holding out to him. “It hardly weighs as much as a loaf of bread!”

The puppy was so excited that a new person was holding it, that it squirmed and yipped quietly, trying to bite on the ends of Gran’s beard.

“You can’t just keep bringing animals over here,” Gran told Hitoshi sternly, even while he began to scratch the dog’s fluffy ears. “We aren’t an animal shelter.”

“I know! I know!” Hitoshi said, holding up his hands placatingly. “This is the last time.”

“It had better be,” Gran growled. “Did you even think to bring food for it?”

“Yep! I stopped at the store before coming over!” Hitoshi said, shrugging off his backpack. 

He pulled out a small yellow collar and leash, a small bag of puppy food, and a dish with two dips in it for food and water. Gran harrumphed at this, but only grumbled, “I’ll have to get a dog door installed, and make an appointment for vaccinations. How come you always bring trouble with you?”

“It’s a gift!” Hitoshi said with a cheeky grin.

Izuku and Hitoshi left Gran alone with the puppy to go up to Izuku’s room to talk about the move to the dorms. When they came back downstairs for Izuku see Hitoshi off, it was to find Gran watching Gomi and the puppy chasing a laser pointer red dot all over the living room. Stompers was interested, but not willing to get into the fray.

“Thanks, Tosh,” Izuku said, giving his friend a fist bump. “Let me know how much I owe you for the stuff for the puppy.”

“Any time,” Hitoshi said, shouldering his empty backpack.

Izuku felt better knowing that Gran would have a companion after he and the cats moved into the dorms. He looked up places that helped to train pets and printed out a list of dates and times that Gran could take advantage of classes nearby. For his part, Gran seemed resigned to having a puppy around the house, and the puppy clearly adored him. It followed Gran around like a...well...like a puppy, and was always ready to play. Gran named him “Taiyaki” for some reason, which was as good as a stamp of approval. 

Izuku soon learned why the puppy had become so easily attached to Gran when he caught the man sneaking the pup scraps of chicken and fish at meal times. He had a feeling that the old man and the young pup would get along just fine.

The week passed by quickly, with Izuku spending most of it packing, though time was made for a formal statement to the police about his encounter with Muscular, the invasion of the training came and the kidnapping. He saw his therapist three times that week, just to make sure he was in a good place mentally during all of the sudden changes in his life. He didn’t know if he would be allowed to leave campus to go to appointments with her any time soon, either.

Finally, the time came to move into the dorms, and Izuku helped the men sent to pick up his things put his boxes into the truck. There were already a lot of boxes inside, as the truck was making several stops to pick up various students’ belongings. He bid Gran and the puppy goodbye with minimal tears and several photos before gathering both cats in the carrier and climbing into the cab of the moving truck. As one of the class reps, he was going to be arriving early at the dorms to make sure the students’ boxes and furniture were delivered to the correct rooms before everyone else arrived.

Tenya arrived in a different truck, and were met by a couple of other trucks, as well. With One For All, Izuku was able to carry large loads and heavy furniture with ease, and it didn’t take nearly as long as anticipated to get everything to their assigned rooms. 

Izuku was pleased to see that Hitoshi had been given the room next to his, and he was at the end of a hallway.

“I suppose we could begin to unpack our own belongings until the others arrive,” Tenya said consideringly. “Or we could go and see if any of the other dorms need help.”

“It doesn’t seem fair to get a head start before the others. 1-B is right next door,” Izuku said with a shrug. “We could go and see if they need a hand… no pun intended.” Kenso Itsuka was the president of the other hero class, and her quirk was called _Big Fist_.

They jogged over and lent the movers a hand at not just 1-B, but many of the other dormitories during the two hours before their classmates arrived. By the time they stood with their friends in front of Heights Alliance 1-A. They were tired, but still excited/ They’d gotten a sneak peak at how they’d all be living for the next two and a half years.

Izuku had left Stompers in his room with a new litter box and food and water, but Gomi had cried and climbed the back of his pants when Izuku had tried to leave her, too. As he stood out front while everyone arrived, Gomi sat on his shoulder with impressive balance, much like a parrot on a pirate’s shoulder. Koda showed up with a cage in his arms, and timidly showed Izuku the rabbit inside. 

“Maybe they could be friends,” Koda said quietly.

“Gomi seems to get along with other cats,” Izuku said with a smile. He was about to pull the kitten off his shoulder so they could get acquainted with the safety of the cage bars separating them. Gomi had other ideas, and with a wiggle of his tail, leaped off of Izuku’s shoulder and _ran_.

“Should I call him back?” Koda asked fretfully.

Izuku saw Shouto approaching across the grass and shook his head. “Nah, I know where he’s going, now.”

It only took a moment for the kitten to sprint over to Shouto and scale his body and meow plaintively for attention. Shouto obliged by cradling Gomi carefully in his arms while he walked to stand with the partially assembled class.

“Good morning,” Izuku greeted him with a smile and a wave. “I’m glad your father let you come; I was kind of worried.”

“He wasn’t happy about it,” Shouto said with a half smile, as if the thought of making his father unhappy was something to smile about. “But they didn’t give him much choice. Aizawa was very insistent about it.”

“You brought Gomi!” Uraraka said excitedly, bouncing up to them all. “And Koda, what have you got there?”

”M-m-m-my rabbit’ managed to stammer out, his natural shyness coming forward.

“It’s so cute!” Uraraka gushed, peering into the cage.

A few moments later, a bark could be heard, and a compact looking dog with a droopy, drooly face scampered up and began barking and snorting up at Gomi. Gomi climbed from Shouto’s arms to his shoulder, where she poofed up every hair on her body in an attempt to look bigger and hissed at the English bulldog in contempt.

Hitoshi walked up and laughed at the snort-growl-bark-squeak the animal was making. “What the heck kind of noise it that?” he asked the dog, bending to pet it.

“Adzuki! What are you doing over here?” Vlad King came rushing over, and hauled the dog up into his arms. Adzuki was overjoyed to see his master and wiggled rapturously and tried to lick Vlad’s face with enthusiasm. “Ah. A cat. Make sure you keep that thing indoors.”

“She’s normally and indoor cat,” Izuku assured him, “Don’t worry.”

Vlad grunted along with his dog, and turned to go back to his own students.

The final group of students arrived, and Aizawa gathered them all together in front of the building marked, “_HEIGHTS ALLIANCE 1-A_.”

“Welcome to your new home,” Aizawa told them in a monotone voice. “I’ll give you a tour of the ground floor, then you call can get your room assignments from Iida or Midoriya and take your time to unpack your things. I won’t go over rules and expectations too much, because each of you was issued a handbook that listed them all, and I expect you to have read it.” 

He turned and walked into the five story building, gesturing to the genkan area that had a large shoe rack for them to change into their slippers. Everyone quickly slipped off their shoes and put them in their labelled slots. They stepped into the main area, everyone looking impressed. The space was large and open, with tall windows to let in a lot of natural light. There was a kitchen for food preparation and several tables for dining.

“This is the common area,” Aizawa told them all, gesturing to the area with couches and coffee tables. There was plenty of room for all of them to sit comfortably at the same time, if they wanted. “You’ll be expected to keep it tidy, though there will be custodial staff that will come in weekly to deep cleaning. The rest is up to you.”

Uraraka looked like she was about to faint as she surveyed everything. “This place is _huge_!” she exclaimed every few minutes.

Aizawa lead them over to the kitchen, which had a large refrigerator, and plenty of cooking space.

“You’ll be expected to take turns preparing meals for the group. Midoriya and Iida should work together to come up with a schedule and post it where it’s easily accessible. Dishes are also your responsibility, though you’ve been provided a dishwasher to make things easier. I shouldn’t have to say this, but nothing that isn’t food should be going into the microwave or oven.”

“But what about…” Kaminari began.

_”Nothing that isn’t food._ Aizawa repeated.

“Even--” Kirishima tried.

_”Nothing that isn’t food._ Aizawa repeated. “Is that clear?”

Everyone nodded and dutifully called out, “Yes, sensei!”

Izuku had a small notebook in hand and was taking notes about his responsibilities as the co-class rep in the new space. Iida stayed close by and offered suggestions to write down. 

“There are bathrooms separated by gender, and a laundry room that may also need a schedule for use. There are industrial sized machines for things like bedding, and smaller ones for daily use.” Aizawa sounded bored as he walked them through the spaces and gave them a general run-down of everything. “Lastly, my apartment is down this hallway. I don’t expect to see or hear any of you near it, except in a dire emergency, or unless invited.”

Before long, they were allowed to break up and go to their individual rooms to unpack. Izuku and Tenya gave everyone their room assignments and pointed them all in the right direction.

“There will be no trading of rooms!” Iida announced loudly, as soon as some of the students began to bargain with each other. “Aizawa is the one who chose where your room would be, and there is no reason to doubt his judgement on the matter!”

Izuku bit back a grin, knowing that Aizawa had probably just picked them on a whim, only worrying about who might cause a commotion. For instance, the explosive Bakugou was on a completely different floor from Izuku, and also didn’t have anyone in one of the rooms next to his.

No one seemed inclined to argue with Iida or Aizawa, so they all either took the elevator or the stairs to their rooms. 

Unpacking was relatively easy for Izuku, since he’d opted to just have a bed, book case, desk and dresser delivered to the school, instead of bringing his own furniture from home. He made his bed, unpacked his clothes and hung his posters and curtains and was basically done. If he spent a little extra time finding the right spots for his All Might collectibles, then it was his time to spend. He put out the litter box and food dishes for the cats, even though they had taken off to explore the new building. Still, setting up his room had only taken about two hours, so he went up to the fifth floor to see if anyone needed help, thinking he’d work his way down each floor until he got back to the second floor, where is own room was.

When he got to Shouto’s open door, he paused when he heard quite a bit of shuffling around before he even reached it. He poked his head around the corner and felt his mouth drop open.

“Hey, Shouto! You’re installing tatami mats?” he asked, surveying the floor and the furniture all pushed to one side of the room.

“It’s what I’m used to,” Shouto said with a shrug as he fitted another mat in place. 

Izuku just marveled for a few moments at the change in the room’s style. He would have thought that Shouto had put in advanced design specs, if he hadn’t seen the room for himself before everyone else had arrived. Even with the air conditioner running, Shouto had a sheen of sweat on his forehead, and the t-shirt he wore showed signs of dampness as he worked.

“Could you use a hand? I’m finished with my room,” Izuku offered.

“This would be easier with two people,” Shouto admitted, blowing his hair out of his eyes.

Izuku’s hands itched to reach out and brush the hair back himself, but instead he stepped fully into the room and surveyed what still needed to be done. With Shouto’s direction and a lot of shifting of furniture, the two of them worked together to make the room over into a classic Japanese bedroom, complete with shoji leading to the balcony. 

“Thank you for your help,” Shouto said as they moved the desk into place as the last bit of moving that needed to be done.

“Of course,” Izuku said with a smile, stretching his arms above his head. “Any time. It’s starting to get late, though. I wonder if I should go downstairs and see if anyone thought to prepare dinner.”

“I’ll go with you,” Shouto said, stretching as well. 

They headed for the stairs automatically, even though the elevator was just at the end of the hall, and started down.

“I’ll need to learn to cook, I suppose,” Shouto said thoughtfully. 

“It’s an important life skill if you ever plan to live on your own,” Izuku agreed. “Tenya and I will probably need to make a list of who can and can’t cook, and make sure everyone knows how to make at least one basic meal.”

“We made curry and beef stew at the training camp,” Shouto pointed out. “It’s wasn’t very...delicious...but it was edible and filling.”

“You’re right! I suppose that if there’s at least one person who can cook in each group, the others can help with preparing the ingredients and cleaning up,” Izuku said, getting to close to muttering as he thought of everyone he knew in the class who could cook. “I wouldn’t mind helping to teach anyone in my group to make a few basic things, either.”

“I would like to be in your group, then” Shouto said as they descended, “if that’s alright. I might not be a very good cook.”

Izuku almost missed a step and had a mini jolt of panic as he righted himself on the landing. “It’s fine with me,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound too flustered. “I didn’t think I would be good at it, either, but now I enjoy it, even if I can’t make anything fancy.”

“The soup you made when you helped Fuyumi was very good,” Shouto said as they came out of the stairwell and into the common area on the first floor.

“You made soup?” Sero asked, only catching the last part of the conversation from where he was standing in the common area. “That’s great! I’m starving!”

“Ah no, I…” Izuku said, trying to correct the assumption.

“There’s food?” Ashido asked, bouncing into the room to hear Sero asking about the soup.

“Food?” Kirishima asked hopefully as he joined them.

“Everyone calm down!” Iida said, seeming to materialize out of nowhere with an air chop. “If you will all gather in the dining area, there are bentos for each of us, courtesy of Lunch Rush and the school.”

There was a general cry of relief and joy as nearly everyone gathered to get their bentos and have a seat at the new tables. While they ate, Izuku took out a notebook and started making lists. Iida looked on and nodded, then started asking the others to raise their hands if they have any particular skills in the kitchen. Surprisingly, not only Izuku, Hitoshi and Sato knew how to cook (though Sato tended to lean toward sweets), but so did Bakugou, Ojiro and Hagakure. Izuku’s mention of having those who could cook teach those who couldn’t was met with interest, and it didn’t take long for them to decide on a rough schedule for meal preparation and clean up. 

After a satisfying meal, the group gathered on the couches and floor to chat and unwind (Except for Bakugou, who just went to his room). It was kind of a new experience for most of them, and had a contented atmosphere.

“Are you okay, Zu? Hitoshi asked, observing his friend rolling his shoulder and stretching his right arm absently.

“Just a bit sore,” Izuku said dismissively. “I messed up my arms pretty bad at the training camp and...after. I forgot to pack my heating pad; I’ll have to ask Gran to drop it by, sometime.”

“Hey!” Hitoshi said loudly to the group ,”Does anyone have a heating pad that Zu can borrow?”

“Todoroki _is_ a heating pad,” Uraraka pointed out, earning chuckles from the group.

Izuku blushed to the roots of his hair almost instantly, but Shouto nearly shrugged. “I don’t mind.”

Uraraka grinned and all but shoved Izuku into the space beside Shouto’s left side. “Crank up the heat a little, Todoroki!”

Izuku felt as though he would die from embarrassment until the moment that he registered Shouto’s body heat amplifying to a pleasant warmth, just short of too hot.

“Oh. My. God.” Izuku couldn’t help the sigh that escaped him as he sank back into the cushions and leaned so that his arm was pressed against Shouto. He might have heard Shouto give a little chuckle at the reaction, but he might have imagined it, since the room was so loud.

Izuku tried to pay attention to the conversations going on around him, but the warmth of the boy he liked pressed against his aching joints and muscles was Very Distracting. The excitement of the day and the work he’d put in helping the movers had taken their toll, and before he knew it, his eyes were feeling droopy. He thought he heard the rumble of Shoto speaking to someone, but couldn’t quite parse what he was saying.

_’I should go to bed,_ Izuku thought sleepily. _ I just need to…”_

The next thing he knew, he was being gently prodded awake by Kirishima and Ashido. They looked far too energetic and were, for some reason, wearing glasses very much like Iida’s. “Midoriya! You missed the room judging contest,” Ashido said.

“Since you were asleep, we just just peeked into your room, but didn’t go in,” Hagakure (also wearing glasses) said, in a way that was probably meant to be reassuring.

Izuku was blinking blearily trying to figure out what was going on.

“But your cats did get out,” Ashido added.

“My cats?” Izuku was having trouble comprehending anything at the moment. Talk of contests and cats and everyone wearing glasses...

He rubbed his eyes and sat up, then remembered that he’d been using Shouto as a heating pad. He looked to his right, and Shouto was sitting beside him, looking content. He hoped his flushed cheeks would be attributed to the warmth, and not intense embarrassment.

“You must have been really tired,” was all Shouto said, not moving away. “Does your arm feel better?”

“Yeah! It does! Thank you so much! Sorry for falling asleep on you,” Izuku said, flexing his arm experimentally. “How long was I out for?”

“Only about a half an hour,” Shouto told him with a slight smile. He looked pleased with himself.

“Hey,” Uraraka piped up from her spot on the other couch (wearing two pairs of glasses), Stompers in her lap, “aren’t you supposed to alternate hot and cold for an injury?”

“Should I switch sides?” Shouto asked, starting to move.

“No, that’s really nice of you, but it feels a lot better now. It’s not an injury, it’s just how my arm is, because of how badly I messed them up.”

“Multiple times,” Hitoshi added. He was seated on the other side of Shouto, holding Gomi, who was straining to get over to Izuku. 

Hitoshi let the kitten go, and it scrambled across Shouto’s shoulders to Izuku, then suddenly attacked the fluffy green locks on Izuku’s head with fervor.

“Ow!” Izuku complained, shoo-ing at the cat, only to have his fingers attacked as well. “Keep your murder mittens to yourself!”

The girls all squealed at how cute the kitten was and had their phones out, snapping pictures Izuku sighed with relief as Gomi lost interest in his hair and settled on Shouto’s shoulder to purr with the volume of a chainsaw. Shouto reached up to pat its head while he looked around at his friends and classmates with a pensive expression.

“Who ended up winning the room contest?” Shouto asked.

“Sato,” Sero said, taking a seat beside Uraraka and petting Stompers. “He bribed everyone with cake.”

“If you’d like to give us cake too, we might reconsider,” Ashido told him lazily from her perch on the arm of the couch.

“What contest, now?” Izuku asked, still not quite up to speed.

“A room decorating contest to see who has the, er, _coolest_ room,” Tenya said with an air of long suffering as he collected the glasses from the classmates who had apparently stolen his extra pairs. 

Izuku wasn’t sure why he had so many...maybe one for each day of the week? “I’m kind of surprised Bakugou didn’t win,” he said, holding back a yawn. “With fashion designer parents, you’d think it would have rubbed off on him.”

“Oh, he didn’t join in,” Kirishima said. “He went to bed right after dinner. Even if he hadn’t, I doubt he would have let us into his personal space.”

“You’ve got a point there,” Izuku said. “Did everyone get unpacked and settled in? Do any of you need help with anything?”

“Everyone is satisfactorily moved in,” Iida reported proudly. “Though some took the decorating to extremes.”

“He’s talking about Todoroki,” Hitoshi whisper-yelled. 

“Seriously, though! Dude! How?” Kirishima asked.

“It looks like a completely different room than everyone else’s!” Kaminari added.

“Hard work,” Shouto said with a shrug, making Izuku grin.

“Izuku helped, so it wasn’t too difficult,” Shouto told them, as if it was any less impressive for two people to have accomplished such a huge transformation in just a few hours.

At ten o’clock, Iida began to turn off lights and check to make sure doors and windows were secure, telling everyone that they needed to go to bed. There were some protests, but it had been a long day, so everyone complied after only token complaints.

In the morning, Izuku got up before the sun for his morning run and was joined by both Shouto and Tenya in front of the dormitory for stretching. Without a conscious decision to do so, they all jogged the trail around campus together, and were back in time to shower, fetch Ashido(who was in their cooking group) and begin to prepare breakfast.

By the time the rest of the students began to filter into the dining area, Ashido was more awake and offering tea to anyone who wanted it, and there was a large pot of miso soup, a huge platter of rolled omelettes, bowls of natto, and steaming rice waiting. Iida congratulated them all for a successful breakfast preparation and began scolding those who were still in their pajamas to go get dressed.

“Classes start in forty-three minutes! We should leave here in twenty-three minutes to be there with the customary fifteen minutes to spare!” Iida told them all with emphatic hand movements.

“Get bent,” Bakugou growled as he finished his soup. He was already dressed in his uniform and ready to go, so he was either just being his usual charming self, or trying to get Iida to cut the others a break.

Regardless, Iida led everyone out of the dorms twenty-five minutes later, marching rigidly at the head of the pack.

“Do you think he’s taking his duties as a class rep too seriously?” Hitoshi asked Izuku as they trailed near the back. “He’s going to give himself an ulcer.”

“I think he enjoys it,” Izuku said with a shrug. “But give him a few days to settle in and loosen up. If he’s still this tightly wound, I’ll have a talk with him.”

Shouto said nothing, but yawned widely as he fell into step with them.

“You okay?” Hitoshi asked him with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes. I just didn’t sleep as well as expected,” Shouto said. “Living in a new place is strange. It’s noisy.”

“Ha! I was thinking how quiet it was,” Hitoshi said. “My house is full of kids most of the time.”

“It’ll probably be an adjustment for everyone,” Izuku surmised. “Before you know it, it will feel normal.”

“Ah! Midoriya Izuku and Todoroki Shouto! Just the students I wanted to see!”

It took the boys a moment to notice Nezu standing by the door as they reached the school. 

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to come to my office for a bit; you may end up being a little late to class,” Nezu told them. “Shinsou-kun, could you please tell make sure whomever is taking roll today knows?”

“Of course,” Hitoshi said with a slight bow. 

Shouto and Izuku followed Nezu at a slightly slower pace than they would normally walk, owing to the principal’s shorter legs. Nezu said little on the way to his office, other than greeting other staff or students they passed on the way.

Izuku was wondering if they had done something that they were going to be reprimanded for, though he couldn't think of anything they’d done wrong. When they reached the office, however, it was to find not only Aizawa waiting for them, but also Gran and Endeavor. Izuku snuck a glance at Shouto, who was also looking at him. They both shrugged and stepped further into the room.

“Everyone have a seat, please,” Nezu directed, taking his own seat behind the desk. 

There were only four chairs, but Aizawa and Endeavor chose to stand. Izuku sat on one side of Gran, and Shouto on the other.

“I’ll get straight to the point,” Nezu said, tapping on his computer for a moment. “Late last night, our security bots apprehended a drone attempting to fly over the school wall near the front gates. The device was taken down without incident and brought to school security, who then contacted me.”

_”A drone?”_ Izuku asked, puzzled. “Like for spying?”

“Yes. Or, in this case, a delivery,” Nezu said, sounding very serious. 

The others in the room remained silent. Izuku had a feeling the other adults already knew what was going on, and it wasn’t going to be good news.

“Delivery?” Shouto prompted.

“A message, of sorts,” Nezu said gravely. “I won’t show you the first part, but suffice it to say, it was grisly. A body part of one of the League of Villains known as Dabi, for reasons we’re not quite sure about, but we have a good guess. The second was a video disk.”

At those words, he held a tiny disc in his paw; the type that went in a micro video camera. He inserted it into the adaptor and slid that into his computer before turning the screen to face them.

The screen came to life and began to play a video. Shigaraki Tomura was in the center of the screen, no hand attached to his pasty, cracked face, though there was one on each shoulder. The background could have been anywhere; a plain brick wall with no defining characteristics whatsoever. He spoke, never ceasing in scratching furiously at his neck as he did so.

“Midoriya Izuku and Todoroki Shouto are responsible for the death of my sensei. They attacked my men and burned down my home.” The words were blunt and full of venom, the villain’s eyes wide and wild-looking. “I have been robbed of my inheritance and I will have my revenge. Nothing, and no one is safe for them.”

That was the whole message. The screen went dark after that and Izuku and Shouto sat silently staring at it as if they expected it to offer something more than that.

“As you are both aware at this point, All For One was a criminal mastermind and a cold blooded murderer. His death, to be frank, is a relief to those in hero circles that knew of his existence, and a serious blow to the criminal underworld he manipulated with frequency.” Nezu say calmly as he explained this, and if any animal could have a human expression, his was one of piqued interest. “But the fact that the two of you were catalysts to his demise is unfortunate, indeed.”

“That’s an understatement,” Gran said. “These boys are bound to have a price on their heads from here on out.”

“Not necessarily.” Strangely enough, it was Izuku who had spoken. “I know that his message was short, but it was pretty personal. I think he’ll want to handle his vendetta personally.”

"That doesn't mean he won't send people out to bring you to him," Aizawa pointed out.

Shouto nodded in agreement, though his expression looked strained. “Everything about that message was personal. Both parts of it.”

“Both? Explain,” Endeavor demanded.

Shouto gritted his teeth, clearly struggling with what he needed to say.

“You have information pertinent to the case?” Aizawa asked more calmly.

Shouto nodded. “It’s… complicated.”

“Spit it out, Shouto!” Endeavor demanded, more harshly this time. “This is not the time to be stubborn!”

Shouto glared at him briefly before finally gritting out, “Dabi’s real name is Todoroki Touya.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Hello. My name is Shigaraki Tomura. You killed my sensei. Prepare to die._
> 
> So...things are going to be a little more divergent from cannon, as you can tell if you’re a manga reader. I don’t know where it’s going, but I’ll try to make it an interesting ride!


	26. The Prices We Pay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few things are brought to light, there's more questions than answers, and Class 1-A still has to make up for their interrupted training camp!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys...I'm WAY behind on my writing... I like to be a few chapters ahead to cover all my bases, and I have been struggling with a couple of scenes, so I'm only about a chapter and a half ahead. I may soon get to the point where weekly chapter updates become every-other-weekly updates (especially with the holiday season coming up). I'll do my best, and I'm still having fun, but time is not on my side!
> 
> Anyway! Please enjoy this chapter! Stuff happens!

There was a beat of silence, where the only reaction in the room was the fact that Endeavor’s flames flared higher, and turned a blistering blue color for a moment.

“Impossible!” Endeavor growled menacingly. 

“Well,” Nezu said calmly. “One mystery is solved, and another arises.”

“He was...is...my older brother,” Shouto said, voice tight and quiet. “I thought he was dead. Now he wants me dead, because I’m my father’s _masterpiece_. He told me, while we were being held by the League.”

Gran was swearing under his breath and looked sharply at Izuku. “I suppose you knew about this, too?”

Izuku was more worried about Shouto than he was about getting into trouble for withholding possible evidence. “It wasn’t my secret to tell,” he said simply. “I promised Shouto I would let him decide when and if it became necessary.”

“Damn it, kid!” Gran groused, jumping to his feet to pace. 

Izuku took advantage of the seat’s vacancy to move closer to Shouto while the adults freaked out. “You okay?” he asked quietly, putting a hand on his friend’s arm, in case he needed to be grounded.

“I’m not sure,” Shouto returned quietly. “It’s a lot. I was avoiding thinking about it until now.”

“I understand,” Izuku said with a nod. “It was brave of you tell them.”

“Yes, it was,” Aizawa said, standing quietly behind the boys. “We can talk more about it in private later, if you’d like. You’ve been shouldering a heavy load by yourself, but you don’t have to. You can talk to me, or a counselor…”

“He doesn’t need a damned counselor,” Endeavor interrupted, apparently having listened at least a little in between arguing with Gran and Nezu. “I never needed any counselling, and Shouto isn’t that weak.”

“I think I’ve pointed this out before,” Izuku told him, getting to his feet and facing the hero. “But Shouto isn’t you. I’m not weak, and go to a counsellor regularly.”

“So do I,” Aizawa said casually, also staring down the number one. “So do a lot of heroes I could name. All Might did, too, from what I’ve heard.”

Shouto seemed very surprised to hear this, and a thoughtful look came over his face as he also stood up to face his father.

“The job can take a lot out of you,” Gran said, looking at Shouto. “There’s no shame in talking it out with someone and trying to make sense of it all. That’s hard to do by yourself sometimes.”

“This is ridiculous. Shouto is _fine_. What we should be worried about is the fact that someone claiming to be Touya has joined the League and a crazed lunatic has basically declared war on my son,” Endeavor said loudly.

“_Which_ son?” Shouto asked with some venom. “Me, or the one who apparently had a body part chopped off?”

“That man isn’t Touya. Touya _died_ ten years ago!” Endeavor all but shouted. 

“Boys,” Aizawa said, ignoring Endeavor’s outburst and curtailing Shouto’s return volley. “It seems that there is a lot to consider in what we’ve learned. Mostly, we want to impress upon you how imperative it is that you both be as safe as possible. Don’t go anywhere alone, and make sure you have your phones with you at all times. For now, please go to class, Ectoplasm is there to take over homeroom, then your training will begin. We can talk more about this later.”

“Yes sir,” Shouto said sullenly, still glaring at his father. 

Izuku nodded, and stuck close to Shouto as they walked back toward the classroom. “So...That happened.” 

Shouto looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “I thought I wouldn't have to see my father for a while,” he finally said. “And definitely not like this.”

“Not what I was expecting, either,” Izuku agreed, at a loss for what to say.

They’d both been blind-sided by the revelation that the League blamed them for the death of their leader. On top of that, the news that Dabi had been relieved of one of his body parts was certainly strange, to say the least. Was it a warning? Was it just Shigaraki’s way of letting them know that he’d punished Dabi for his part in the fire? Was Dabi even still alive? Was it wrong to hope that he was, for Shouto’s sake, if nothing else? Why did Endeavor say that someone was pretending to be Touya? Izuku had a lot of thoughts, and not all of them made sense.

“Could you…” Shouto began tentatively as they approached their classroom door, “...Would you be willing to go with me, if I decide to talk to a counselor? At least for the first time?”

“Of course!” Izuku answered immediately, without even pausing to think about it. “If you want me to.”

“I feel like I’m more focused, or I think better when you’re around?” Shouto confessed, his expression looking as though he wasn’t sure he was wording that right. “I’m comfortable around you in a way that I’m not around other people. You see the world differently than I do, and it’s...I like it.”

“I’ll do what I can to help,” Izuku told him, blushing furiously at that confession. “Any time.”

He was saved from further embarrassment by their arrival at class. Ectoplasm was just dismissing them to go put on their hero costumes and get to Gym Gamma. They got curious looks from their friends, no one said anything until lunchtime.

“So the League of Villains basically burned down their own hideout, killing their big boss, and they blame the people they kidnapped and brought there?” Hitoshi summed up around a mouthful of his American-style hamburger.

“Pretty much,” Izuku agreed, picking at his plate of pasta, not having much of an appetite. 

They had not shared the bit about Dabi’s true identity, not knowing how it would be received or how the adults would eventually decide to handle it.

“Now Aizawa and Principal Nezu think we need to have escorts everywhere we go,” Shouto added, not looking particularly pleased.

“They are correct!” Iida said, siding with the adults (as usual). “It might not be comfortable for you, but there is safety in numbers, most of the time!”

“I hate to admit it, but even though you guys are arguably the strongest in our class, it never hurts to have more pairs of eyes watching your backs,” Hitoshi said. “At the dorms, it’s probably no big deal since that Kurogiri guy got locked up, but even here on campus it’s not a good idea to go anywhere alone.”

Izuku and Shouto sulked a little about that, but said nothing. Mostly because there was no reason to refuse the company of friends who just wanted to keep them safe.

Class after lunch consisted of more hero training, where they were encouraged to work on special moves.The training camp had been cut short, but they still had ten days left of summer break before classes resumed normally. They would be stretching out what they’d started at camp, and working toward preparing for their provisional licenses.

“Isn’t it too soon to be thinking of provisional licenses?” Iida asked when their teachers told them their goal.

“Normally, yes,” Midnight told them bluntly, “But since this crop of first year hero students seem to be getting an unusual amount of attention from some major villains, and crime has been on the uptick since the attack on Hosu and Stain’s capture, it’s been decided that you’ll all be better off with the legal means to use your quirks in emergency situations.”

Izuku had given the subject of special moves some thought lately, but was still short of ideas on how to really implement them. All Might had had plenty of special moves: each of his punches had a different effect and were named after different cities in the United States. 

“What you just standing around, for?” Ectoplasm (or one of his clones) asked him when he failed to show the enthusiasm that the other members of the class were showing. 

“I’m a bit worried,” he admitted. “The doctors say if I do any more damage to my arms, I could permanently disable myself.”

Ectoplasm, who was missing both of his legs below the knee, could relate. “You do have quite the self-destructive quirk. Have you talked to anyone in the support department?” the teacher asked thoughtfully. “They might be able to devise an item to lessen the impact of your quirk on your arms.”

“It’s on my to-do list, but things have been a bit...crazy, lately,” Izuku understated. 

“You can say that again,” Ectoplasm told him, with feeling.

Aizawa approached then, and made a suggestion. “I know that your quirk is very similar to All Might’s, but _you_ are _you_. You don’t need to be a copycat when you can be an original. If your arms can’t take the strain, what does that leave you with?”

Izuku smacked his own forehead, amazed at how simple the answer was. “My legs! I can’t believe… I’ll start working on that right away!”

Aizawa shared a look with Ectoplasm before turning to check on his other students.

_”If i use my legs for special moves, the kicking could cause a similar strain on my ankles, knees and hips. I never used my quirk when I trained in martial arts, but I would definitely need to consider braces and overall reinforcement for all of my joints to minimize any…”_ Izuku stood pinching his lower lip between his fingers as he considered the possible implications of changing his entire fighting style. 

“Midoriya, you’re muttering, again,” Hitoshi said absently as he passed, a capture weapon resting on his shoulders and around his neck.

”Oh. Right,” He snapped out of his reverie and focussed on Ectoplasm, who had been waiting patiently for him to have some sort of epiphany. “I’m going to go try some stuff, if that’s okay.”

“Go for it,” Ectoplasm said with a shoo-ing motion.

Izuku went. He asked Cementos to create a few pillars for him and then worked on focusing his power to his legs. His martial arts training had been more about defending against attackers and countermeasures. He hadn’t focused on things like board or cinder block breaking, or anything like that. He would need to study the form for kicks and work it into his muscle memory; he thought Tenya might be a good resource for information about that. 

At the end of the class period, they got changed and went back to their homeroom. At the end of the school day, Izuku was asked to stay behind while the rest of the students left for their dormitory to get started on their homework. Once they were alone, Aizawa took a seat at the desk in front of Izuku’s and sat backward so he could rest his elbows on Izuku’s desktop.

“Alright, Problem Child,” he said, sounding tired. “Let’s have a chat.”

Izuku swallowed hard, suddenly nervous. He had known he was taking a risk in keeping Dabi’s identity a secret; was that about to come back and haunt him? He could see how it might look to someone who didn’t know Shouto and the Todoroki family’s history the way he did. He didn’t regret protecting Shouto’s secret while he figured things out, but he also didn’t like deceiving people who trusted him and wanted to help him.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he said quietly, hanging his head. 

“What are you sorry for?” Aizawa asked. 

It was impossible to tell if he was prompting Izuku to make a proper apology and acknowledge what he’d done wrong, or whether he truly didn’t know why the apology was being issued to begin with.

“I wasn’t completely truthful about Dabi’s real name in my reports to the police or to you,” Izuku said dutifully. “I’m not sorry for keeping the secret, exactly, but I am sorry for any trouble it caused.”

Aizawa nodded. “Well, I do understand why you didn’t say anything about it and, to be honest, I don’t think his real identity matters all that much, in the long run.”

Izuku raised his head to meet his teacher’s eyes, amazed by what he’d just heard. 

“Knowing his true identity might give us some information we didn’t have before about his motives and how he turned into a villain, but ultimately, that doesn’t matter as much to the investigation as the fact that he _is_ a villain, regardless. Why he does what he does might be interesting on a forensic level, but that isn’t our job. Our job is to keep others and ourselves safe from villains and the situations they cause.”

When he put it that way, Izuku understood. He was seeing the whole picture, when most people were only concentrating on a small part of it. It wasn’t that it didn’t matter, it just wasn’t relevant to the situation at hand.

“That being said,” Aizawa told him, reaching out to flick Izuku’s forehead. “We shouldn’t let our personal feelings and relationships keep us from doing the right thing.”

“If the information doesn’t really matter in the long run, then wasn’t protecting Shouto the right thing?” Izuku asked, leaning back slightly and rubbing the spot he’d just been flicked on.

“Maybe,” he teacher allowed. “Time will tell you that. What I really wanted to talk to you about today is what I learned about your quirk the day before camp.”

“Ah,” Izuku said with a slight cringe. “That.”

“Yes, _that_. Speaking of keeping secrets… this is one that I know is particularly difficult. I understand that you were told to keep it at all costs, and I also understand how dangerous sharing it can be. Still, now that I do know it, I can’t pretend that I don’t. If I had known from the beginning, I might have taken an entirely different approach to your education.”

“Really?” Izuku asked, wondering how it would have differed.

“The other students have had their quirks all their lives. You’re good, but you’re still playing catch up, in hindsight. Now that I know what your potential power levels are, I can help guide you more efficiently. You don’t have to be _him_. You don’t have to replace him, either. You can make that power your own and be the hero only you can be. From what I can gather after talking to your guardian and Gran Torino more about it, the reason it was so important for him to pass this power along was to defeat All For One once and for all.”

“And now that I’ve killed--”

“You didn’t kill anyone,” Aizawa cut him off, flicking him on the forehead again. “A reckless act by a drunken villain and a series of serious miscalculations on All For One’s part caused his death. Not everyone gets to go out in the blaze of glory they imagine or even plan on.”

“Right. I guess... I feel like, since I was the only one who knew he was down there, I should have felt compelled to try to save him, I guess? But I didn’t,” Izuku admitted, though hearing it out loud sounded a bit silly.

“To be honest… that’s going to be a struggle you will probably face again and again. Saving heroes from their own stupidity is sometimes part of the job. As a hero, it can really be conflicting; you know might know that they’re irredeemable, but at the same time, it’s in our nature to save others, regardless of who they are.”

“When we got out of there, the place was fully engulfed. I couldn’t even get out without Shouto carrying me,” Izuku said, even though he knew Aizawa had been told and read all of the relevant reports. “I think...what I really feel guilty about is that the guy was obviously physically disabled… there was no way he could have escaped on his own that I could see. But. I didn’t even think about going back in to try to get him out.”

“Midoriya,” Aizawa said firmly. “You can’t and you _won’t be able to_ save everyone. Save your feelings of guilt for a man who has killed dozens, possibly hundreds of people either personally or by ordering or controlling others. His death is on _him_. Not even because he deserved to die for his crimes, but because he made fatal errors. One of them was bringing known enemies to place where he was most vulnerable at a time that he wasn’t able to defend himself against a simple fire. Arrogance was what killed him, Midoriya. Not you.”

Izuku nodded slowly. He’d heard similar speeches from Gran and this therapist, but somehow hearing his teacher say it had more impact. 

“Now, back to the subject at hand,” Aizawa redirected. “I’ve talked to Nezu about who he had giving you lessons i gymnastics, martial arts and all that other stuff meant to make you stronger. He is, of course, a genius, so I can’t really argue with his choices, but I think that at this point it’s fair to say that it’s probably time to put you on a more focused regimen of weight training. You’re already strong, but from what I’ve learned, you’re only able to wield about fifteen to twenty percent. It’s because of the backlash of that much power flowing through you, correct?”

“Yes,” Izuku said with a nod. “From what I’ve been able to tell from watching old videos and reading articles about his accomplishments, I can’t pull off even a fraction of some of his moves! He even changed the weather once and made it rain with a single punch!”

Aizawa knew what incident his student was referring to, and counted himself glad that wasn’t something he had to worry about the boy trying out any time soon. “Gran Torino knew him personally, and even taught him when he was young, so you’ve got yourself an excellent mentor to be able to gauge what you can and can’t handle.”

“Actually… Gran said that All Might never had a problem like this. He took to it like a duck takes to water, and all he had to do was beat some fighting sense into him,” Izuku said sheepishly. “I don’t know if it’s because he was bigger, or just had more potential, physically than me.”

“Of course,” Aizawa said, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Of course he was a natural. Okay. He still has a good idea of how much power you’re working with, and wasn’t afraid to train you and help you get to this point. Our job now isn’t to make you as strong as All Might, it’s to make the strongest Midoriya Izuku possible.We were on the right track with the training we did at camp we’ve got to go _plus ultra_ to get you where you need to be. We’ll be consulting physical therapists in regards to how much we can push the development of your arms and how to best protect them, and your legs in the future. We’re also going to have meetings with dietitians to make sure you have the proper nutrition necessary to build the muscles and strength you’ll need. Be ready to really ramp it up and work hard.”

“Yes, sir! But… is it fair for me to be getting such special treatment?” Izuku answered.

“Kid, _’fair’_ isn’t everybody getting the same thing; _’fair’_ is everybody getting what they need to succeed,” Aizawa explained. “If it makes you feel any better, the physical therapist is also going to be working with Bakugou about the stress his explosions cause to his arms and wrists, and the dietitian is going to be meeting with Momo and Sato about how to eat properly for their quirk types. You’re not being singled out for special treatment, you’re being given access to what you need. What you do with that is up to you.”

Izuku nodded, thinking about his classmates and how much they might benefit from the same things being afforded to him.

“Thank you, sir,” Izuku said, wondering where he was going to find the time for so much extra training and appointments.

“Is there anything else you need to talk about?” Aizawa asked, keeping his seat so as not to rush his student. 

“I uh…” Izuku’s mind shot to Shouto, and the way he felt about him. “Not unless you’re good with advice about talking to the person you like?”

“No.” Aizawa didn’t even blink, but somehow his expression seemed more closed off. “If you need sex education, then rest assured it’s a planned series of health discussions with trained professionals in that field that you’ll be receiving in the next.”

“No, no! Nothing like _that_!” Izuku flailed a bit in his denial. “I just didn’t know…”

“Still no.” Aizawa answered flatly. “As long as you’re all sleeping in your own beds, it’s none of my business who want to stick who’s tongue their mouths. We’re done here, unless there’s something else.”

“No!” Midoriya said, jumping to his feet and fumbling for his bag. “We’re done!”

“Thank God,” Aizawa muttered, striding to the door. He slid it open to find a kitten standing there, mewling plaintively.

“Gomi! How did you get out?” Izuku cried, rushing forward as his teacher scooped the cat up. 

“This isn’t Gomi, it’s Tsume,” Aizawa said, looking at the cat in vexation. “But the question of how he got out is still relevant.”

“He looks a lot like my cat, Gomi,” Izuku told him, seeing up close the differences in markings. Then he remembered that Hitoshi had said that his mentor had taken one of a litter found in the trash. “They’re from the same litter?”

Aizawa simply nodded. 

“I kinda figured you were who Tosh went and interned with,” Izuku said with a shrug. “Thanks for looking out for him. I can tell he’s learning a lot. The kids at school used to say he could only be a villain because of his quirk, so it’s great to see him becoming a really great hero.”

“Go do your homework, problem child,” Aizawa uttered, carrying the cat toward the teacher’s offices.

Izuku walked back to the dorms, only to find Sero, Kaminari, Ashido and Shouto outside hopping around in the grass. As he approached, he could see what they were doing and grinned at the confused look on Shouto’s face. 

“No, no. You have to move your arm more like this,” Kaminari instructed, demonstrating.

Sero and Ashido joined in, and on a whim, Izuku dropped his bag and started doing, too.

“Whaaat? Midoriya’s got moves?” Ashido whooped happily.

“What’s going on out here?” Uraraka asked, poking her head outside. “Fortnite dances?”

“Fortnite dances?” came Iida’s voice from inside. “They said they were going to do homework!”

Both classmates came outside to check out the impromptu dance party. Iida watched as Shouto tried to follow along, despite the bewildered look on his face.

“Your hips are too stiff,” Tenya told him, moving over to assist his friend. 

It was not lost on anyone how ironic it was that Tenya was calling any one ‘too stiff.’

“You’re kidding me! _Class Rep Iida_ knows how to Floss?” Sero asked incredulously.

Iida blushed slightly, but simply said, “Dancing is excellent exercise. Plus, Tensei made me do it.”

It wasn’t long before Kirishima came outside to find his friends, and Hagakure, Ojiro and Shoji were also out on the lawn, showing off their moves. It wasn’t until Bakugou’s shout out a window for them to shut up that they all calmed down and went inside to do homework.

“What prompted you to learn Fortnite dances?” Izuku asked Shouto as they climbed the stairs.

“When they asked me, I told them I didn’t know what they were talking about, and they said it was something I had to know how to do,” Shouto said with a shrug. “I’m not really all that knowledgeable about pop culture references, so it seemed like a good opportunity to learn. It’s...fun?”

“You sound like you’re not sure,” Izuku said with a small smile.

“Well,” Shouto seemed to blush a little. “I really wasn’t given all that many chances to have fun growing up, so I’m not really sure how to deal with it. Having so many people my own age around, noisy meals, all the laughing; it’s new.”

Izuku’s heart squeezed. Partly it was because he felt sad for the Shouto who had lived such a secluded upbringing, but also for the Shouto he was becoming, discovering things for the first time that most people took for granted.

“I’m glad you’re having fun. If they bother you, you can just tell them to stop,” Izuku told him. “But if you’re looking for new experiences, I have a feeling our class will be happy to give you plenty!”

They reached the fifth floor and Izuku looked up and down the hall and then scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. “I uh...I missed my floor,” he said with a huff of a laugh. “I’m on the second.”

Todoroki looked like he might smile for a moment, but instead he offered, “You could do your homework up here, if you want.”

Izuku still had his bag with him, so he jumped at the chance to spend more time with Shouto. “That’d be nice,” he said, trying to sound calm and not let his voice strangle.

“We’re supposed to write a few paragraphs about what special move we’re working on, what makes it unique and why we think it qualifies as a _finishing_ move,” Shouto said, unlocking his door and letting them both in. “but I’m having a bit of trouble.”

Izuku raised his eyebrows at that. He shrugged off his uniform jacket and sat down beside Shouto’s desk, which was basically a low table pushed against the wall and a legless chair in front of it. “How so? Because you have two quirks?”

“Mostly because I feel like any move should be a finishing move,” Shouto said with a shrug. “Isn’t that what we’re all aiming for? To stop a fight as quickly and decisively as possible?”

“True,” Izuku admitted, giving it some thought. “But that’s not always possible. Sometimes you’ll run into someone who’s a match for you, or has a quirk that cancels yours out in a normal use of it. That, and you won’t always be using your quirk to fight, either. A special move doesn’t have to be an attack; that’s what Ectoplasm said. How about something like a barrier of ice or fire or both? Or maybe you could make a sort of exoskeleton of ice to bulk up your form with? That would take a ton of fine-tuned control, though. Or you could make ice spring up so suddenly under your feet that you could shoot into the air and attack from above? Or maybe…”

Shouto just stood, smiling down at Izuku indulgently as he began to ramble. 

“Sorry,” Izuku said sheepishly, ducking his head when he realized he was talking too much and throwing out random ideas. “I get carried away.”

“I like it,” Shouto said, taking a seat at the desk, as well. “I’d never thought to use my ice that way. I might have to give it a try during training tomorrow to see if those are workable ideas.”

“I wish my own problem was as easy to toss off ideas about,” Izuku mumbled, getting out his pencil case and notebook. “I think one of my first stops tomorrow during training is going to be to the support department, so I can protect what’s left of my arms and keep my legs from ending up the same way.”

“One of your arms was broken before coming to UA, wasn’t it?” Shoto asked, also getting out his supplies.

Izuku grimaced as he nodded. “More than once. The first time was the worst; I had to have rods and screws put in to hold my bones together. My quirk was still new to me at the time, and just got away from me.”

He turned his arm to show the scar from his surgery that looked like a pink centipede crawling up his arm.

“Thankfully, Gran knew Nezu and Recovery girl well enough to call in a favor and ask her to come heal it up after the surgery, so I could keep training.”

“That’s some nasty backlash,” Shouto said, reaching out to touch the puckered skin of the scar.

“You’re telling me!” Izuku returned sardonically. “I also broke it during regular training and again after my mom died and I uh...I had a little temper tantrum and took it out on an innocent TV stand. Thought the TV stand mostly involved my hands and wrists.”

“You need to value your safety more,” Shouto told him seriously.

Izuku sighed heavily. “I know. The first couple of times weren’t really my fault, but I do need to get stronger and learn how to use this power without breaking my bones.”

“Tell me what your ideas are for using your legs for a special move,” Shouto prompted, changing the subject. 

They worked companionably together on their papers, bouncing ideas off of each other and getting input. Izuku was just finishing up when the alarm on his phone began to buzz.

“Time to start making dinner for everyone,” he said, stretching his arms above his head before getting to his feet. “I’d better go change, first. Meet you down in the kitchen?”

Shouto nodded, putting his homework away in his bag. “I’ll go remind the others. Oh! I also have your magazine.”

“My magazine?” Izuku was confused for a moment until he saw what Shouto pulled out of his drawer. “Oh! From the hospital! I had forgotten all about it!”

“Sorry for not giving it back, sooner,” he said.

Izuku tucked the magazine into his bag as he reached for the door. “Thanks for letting me do homework here,” he told Shouto. “It was nice to have you to talk to.”

He headed to his own room and changed quickly, feeling like maybe living in the dorms wouldn’t be bad at all. By the time he got downstairs, the rest of his crew was there, already washing their hands. After scrubbing his own, Izuku opened the fridge to make sure that all of the ingredients he had seen in there earlier were still available, and started to pull things out and put them on the counter.

“What are we making, Deku?” Ashido asked as they gathered around the counter.

“Zaru Soba,” Izuku said absently, setting out a large daikon and a bunch of scallions. “Does that sound okay?”

“You know how to make that?” Shouto asked, looking as excited as Izuku had ever seen him look over food. “It’s my favorite.”

“Don’t get your hopes up too high,” Izuku warned him. They’re just store-bought noodles. Making my own is a little beyond my skill set. That being said, it was probably Lunch Rush who ordered the groceries for our move-in, so they’re likely to be decent quality. I chose it because it’s one of the more simple meals to make.”

“We’ll need to be making a set menu soon,” Tenya said with a nod, “and have a group go shopping that can stay within our budget.”

“What should we do to help?” Ashido asked.

Izuku set them all tasks like grating radish and chopping seaweed and scallions and plating them up, then went about figuring out how much dipping sauce to prepare for twenty people.

In the end, he had them all watch as he prepared tempura shrimp for the protein, then let each of them try their hand at it while he supervised. The result wasn’t the prettiest he’d seen, but it tasted fine, and no one complained about it at the table Shouto was especially pleased, and demanded to be allowed to eat the portion of shrimp that he made. He had also been proud of the fact that he had been the one to get to chill the water that got poured over the soba, and everyone had commented on how nice and refreshing it was on a summer night. . All in all, a successful meal.

After dinner, most of the kids spent some time watching television while the kitchen and dishes were cleaned, then it was time for baths. 

“Holy shit, Midoriya! What happened to your chest?” Kaminari practically shouted when Izuku joined some of the other boys in the large bath to soak after washing.

“Burns,” he said simply. “Dabi got me.”

Kaminari looked like he wanted to say more, but Kirishima threw a towel at his face to shut him up. “Sorry, man. Didn’t mean to bring up something unnecessary,” he said instead.

“Don’t worry about it,” Izuku said easily. “It just a couple of scars. I’ve got plenty, and I’ll probably end up with more.”

Shouto was staring at Midoriya’s chest, and looked angry about it, again. Bakugou looked at the hand prints and scowled, but then looked the other way as if disinterested. The mood had changed from relaxing to awkward and tense in the time it took Izuku to sink into the water up to his shoulders.

“So,” he said to change the subject, “Are you guys going to teach Shouto how to play video games?”

“What? Oh! Yeah! Maybe this weekend we can set up one of our systems and have a tournament, or something!” Kirishima said, jumping on the chance to lighten the mood. 

Conversation turned to video games as the boys talked Shouto’s ear off about what things he’d heard of and anything he might find interesting to play. Izuku leaned back and let the conversation flow around him until he felt relaxed once more. 

“Don’t fall asleep in the water, dumbass,” Bakugou muttered as he exited the tub.

Izuku hadn’t even noticed he’d been getting droopy eyed. Sero was already gone, and he hadn’t even noticed him leaving. 

“You should go to bed,” Shouto told him, standing up, himself.

Izuku nodded, averting his eyes from the sight of Shouto’s naked body less than a meter away. “You’re right. It’s been a long day, and tomorrow will probably be even busier.”

He followed after Shouto, and dressed in his pajamas, wrapping in a light robe for the short trip up the stairs. Iida had already turned off the lights in much of the house, though a couple of kids were lingering in the common area, having quiet conversations. He waved as he passed, and made himself make sure everything he needed for the next day was prepared before getting into bed. He checked his bag for his phone, and found the magazine that Shouto had returned to him that afternoon.

He pulled it out, and after putting his phone on the charger, got in bed and flipped through the pages. Nothing really caught his interest enough to pause on for more than a few seconds, and he was about to toss the magazine aside, when a small piece of paper fell out. Thinking it was an advertisement insert, he almost crumbled it up, then he saw what it actually was, and sat up.

The paper was an ordinary note paper from a pad from the hospital he had last been in, It looked like the type that might sit by a telephone with a pen for patients to write things down on, with the hospital’s name and address at the top. On the page, however, was a drawing. That in itself wouldn’t have been that notable, but Izuku couldn’t tear his eyes away from the artwork that was no doubt done by Shouto: Izuku’s sleeping face. It was little more than a rough sketch, but the details were there, and it was easy to see who the picture was of, with the unruly wavy hair and the smattering of freckles. Did he really have that many? Shouto would have had to study him for a while to draw him like this, wouldn’t he? 

Not that he’d had that much to do, being stuck in a hospital bed for hours with a sleeping roommate… But still. The drawing depicted Izuku with a peaceful (probably medicated) expression, parted lips and lashes fanned out on his cheeks. Even the shape of the ears was spot-on. It made him wonder how long it had taken to draw it. Did he even remember doing it? Had he meant to leave it in the magazine? It would be way too awkward to give it back to him, if he didn’t. Or even if he did.

Izuku found his mind suddenly whirling with confused thoughts, and wondered if liking someone was supposed to be this confusing and strange.

How was he supposed to sleep, now? He slipped the drawing into his bedside table drawer before turning out the light and laying the darkness, waiting for sleep to come. When it did, it was filled with dreams, just as confusing as his waking thoughts.

The next morning, Izuku enjoyed a simple breakfast made by the second cooking group before trudging off to homeroom, feeling sluggish after a poor night’s sleep. Hitoshi kept giving him sidelong looks of concern, but took Izuku at his word when he said he was just tired. After a brief homeroom, the class was sent to train in Gym Gamma once more, but Izuku made a detour on the way and soon found himself standing in front of a door that had a sign about it that read: _DEVELOPMENT STUDIO_ above it.

He was about to reach for the door handle, when the door buckled toward him before exploding outward a split second later. Izuku’s reflexes had him throwing up his arms to block as he was pushed backward before being hurled to the ground. When he opened his eyes, it was to be staring into the face of a girl about his own age. She had goggles above unusual golden eyes that looked as though the pupils spread crosshairs over her irises. Her face was smudged with what looked like grease, and she was grinning widely, even as a voice from inside the studio could be heard scolding her.

“Um…” Izuku wasn’t quite sure what was happening, but the girl was lying on top of him with her ample bosom pressed against his chest, and her pink hair falling in thick ropes around his face. “Are you alright?” he asked, while his brain was screaming, _’Boobs!’_

“Who are you?” she asked, getting to her feet.

She didn’t wait for an answer before calling back into the studio that she couldn’t be expected to succeed on her first try, and explosions were just an unfortunate side effect of genius. She abandoned Izuku on the floor as though she had already forgotten he was there, just leaving the debris scattered around the hallway.

“Deku-kun? What happened?” 

Uraraka’s voice drew his attention from the other girl’s retreating form and the smoke still wafting from the room. 

“I’m not sure,” He said, accepting the hand she offered to help him up.

“Dude,” Hitoshi said, walking over with a smirk on his face. “I thought you liked Todoroki, but I turn my back for five minutes and you’ve got a hot girl lying on top of you in the middle of the hallway! You man-whore!”

Uraraka snorted so hard at that, that she started coughing alarmingly. Izuku thumped her on the back while glaring at Hitoshi, and waited for Uraraka to gain her composure before asking them why they were there.

“I’m getting my voice amplifier upgraded,” Hitoshi said, tapping the device around his neck, resting on a capture weapon.

“I need a couple of suit upgrades,” Uraraka said. “How about you?”

“I need to see if they can come up with something to protect my limbs better. My arms need reinforcement, and if I’m going to be focusing on using my feet and legs, then I need some protection there, too.”

They entered the studio and looked around at the controlled chaos, not sure exactly who they should speak to, and not wanting to interrupt their work. Finally, Izuku spoke up.

“Excuse the intrusion, but we came to see about getting costume upgrades?”

A thin man with a steam shovel type bucket for a helmet turned. Izuku knew him as Power Loader, the pro hero in charge of support students. His quirk allowed to dig and move through the ground like a powered-up mole.

“Suit upgrades? Let me see the blueprints for your costumes. They should be in the cases they came in. Don’t worry; I’m licensed to do this!”

All of them handed over the required blueprints and explained what they were hoping to achieve. A few moments later, Iida also arrived, looking for help with his radiators.

“You want to protect your limbs?” the girl from earlier, who turned out to be Hatsume Mei, asked Izuku, stepping up into his personal space. “Hmmm…”

Suddenly, she was running her hands all over his body while he stood stiffly, begging with his eyes for his friends to intervene.

“What are you doing?” Uraraka asked, sounding shocked.

“I’m checking out his body!” Hatsume said offhandedly.

Izuku gave a strangled yelp as he hands ran over his butt, and tried to push her away. 

“Yes! You’re way more ripped than you look! You’ll do nicely! Check out this baby!” she said excitedly, hauling Izuku across the room to what looked like an exoskeleton from a sci fi movie. “This baby is the Power Suit! It will protect your limbs, for sure! Get in!”

“Yeah, Zu! Get in!” Hitoshi encouraged with an evil grin.

Izuku silently vowed that he would have his revenge on his best friend very soon, as he was strapped into the suit and ordered around by the very bossy support student. In minutes he was feeling the vibration of the machine rumbling all around him as it was powered on, but when it started moving on it’s own, the entire torso of the suit began to turn, twisting Izuku with it, past his normal ability to do so.

“Ow! Ow! _Ow_! It’s breaking my back!” Izuku was starting to panic as he heard and felt the popping of his vertebrae. 

“Turn it off before it snaps his spine!” Iida barked, rushing forward to grab at the control.

Izuku sighed in relief as the suit reverted to it’s normal position and powered down. He quickly freed himself and dropped to hands and knees on the floor, catching his breath and taking stock. “I just wanted some arm and leg braces, and I almost got snapped in two!” he complained to Uraraka, who was crouched nearby to check on him.

“Oh well, sorry about that. The mobility software seems to be a bit buggy. I’m sure I can re-purpose it, somehow,” Hatsume decided, not at all worried about the fact that he’d almost seriously injured someone. 

Now that the crisis was over, Iida turned to Power Loader to make his own request. “I’m looking for a way to strengthen the radiators on my legs, if at all possible.”

“I’ve got just the thing!” Hastume sang. She wasted no time in snapping a large sleeve over Iida’s existing armor on his arm. “Ta-dah! This Super Cooler Electric Booster is my 36th baby! Isn’t it cute? It reduces heat output to a minimum!”

Iida looked very alarmed by this turn of events. “But, I don’t need a booster, especially on my arm.

“Booster on!” Hatsume cried gleefully.

With a rumble, the booster fired up and suddenly Iida was slammed against the ceiling and held there by the force of the booster on his arm. Just as suddenly, it quit, and Iida dropped to the floor. “My quirk uses my _legs_!” he scolded, getting to his hands and knees, with Hitoshi and Uraraka hovering nearby, ready to help him up, if needed.

“I know! I was thinking that if your legs get fatigued, you can just use your arms!” Hastume said cheerfully.

Izuku was about to point out that Tensei was the one with the arm boosters, but Power Loader was finally ready to rein his student in. 

“That’s enough of your nonsense!” he told her, sounding annoyed. “One more outburst of creative genius that almost hurts someone, and I’ll ban you from the lab for a week!”

He made a swipe to smack her head, but she dodged neatly, accusing him of child abuse in a teasing tone. It was clear they had a good student/mentor relationship. The man turned to Iida and the others and said, “Sorry about her. Her ego knows no bounds. It’s kind of a pain in the butt, sometimes.”

“We know,” Iida said darkly, with Uraraka nodding by his side.

“Still, she’s a prodigy. See all of that stuff over there?” Power Loader pointed to a huge mound of projects that looked as though they’d just been tossed aside. “That’s all of the things she’s created since school started.”

“She made all of this in just four months?” Izuku asked, feeling true awe at the scope of it.

“She’s always here, working. Weekends, after classes, even vacations! We’ve had some brilliant minds come through here, but she’s on a whole other level. You’d do well to foster a good working relationship with her, since once you turn pro, she’ll likely be the top name in the support field. If you want the best, she’ll be it.”

It was kind of hard for Izuku to believe that someone who acted so ridiculous could also be so serious. 

“She doesn’t know the meaning of the word failure; things that don’t work the way she expects are just springboards to new ideas and inspirations. The best innovators out there are unrestrained by convention.” Power Loader told them. 

Izuku nodded, letting everything he was hearing and seeing sink in.

“Anyway, some of this stuff I could have done almost right away, though any major modifications have to go through a governmental application and approval process. I have excellent connections and use only the best companies, so stuff like that I can get back to you in about three days.”

Hatsume tried to wrangle Uraraka into using one of her inventions, but they made excuses and got away intact a few minutes later.

“Tenya!” Izuku said excitedly as they headed back to Gym Gamma. “Can you teach me some moves? I want to incorporate more kicks into my fighting style!”

“Of course!” Tenya agreed, raising a hand to wave at a few Class B students heading toward the Development Studio as they passed. “Tell me what you have in mind!”

The rest of the day was spent learning new postures and forms. At one point, Aizawa came by and brought a small box over to Izuku. When he opened it, it was to reveal the compression weights tat Izuku had worn at training camp. 

“Your weight training starts now, problem child.”


	27. Making Progress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izuku gets a suit upgrade, and Bakugou learns some unpleasant truths.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here comes the start of the provisional license test! I didn't have time to update this chapter this morning,and failed horribly when I tried to do it on my phone during my lunch break. It is super UN beta read. Sorry for the wait!

Just four days later, Izuku emerged from the locker room with his new additions to his costume in place. The braces on his arms complemented the design on the rest of his suit, as did the leg supports with reinforced knee pads. His shoes now sported iron soles that wrapped around his foot without hampering movement. While they were quite heavy, they didn’t put a strain on his joints thanks to the supports. The only thing that looked out of place were the compressed weights on his ankles and wrists, which he’d had a few days to get used to. If his aching muscles each morning were an indication that he was getting stronger and building muscle, then he was on track.

“Looks good! Very intimidating!” Kirishima complimented him as he entered the gym.

Izuku grinned, feeling pumped up and ready to face any challenge. “Thanks! I can’t wait to try out the iron soles!”

Hitoshi (who had mysteriously emerged from his shower with magenta hair two days previously (but Izuku wouldn’t know anything about that) gave Izuku a fist bump when he saw the improvements. “Any bones that break at this point will be an act of the gods.”

Izuku got an approving nod from Aizawa, and even a begrudging one from Bakugou as he obliterated the first concrete pillar that had been created for him. He was definitely making progress. 

He and Tenya were running through forms with his newly equipped iron soles to see if the balance or anything needed adjusting. Izuku was showing Tenya how to work out on a make-shift concrete pommel horse to strengthen his upper body. A few of the students paused in their own work outs to watch Izuku go through his old routine from the days he still took gymnastics. He liked the rhythm and the challenge of controlling his movements to get a desired aesthetic. 

He also helped Ojiro work out a more efficient way to flip, using his tail as a spring, and some of the others marveled at his flexibility and the fact that he could do a perfect split with no strain. 

“That freaks me out,” Hitoshi said. “No matter how many times I see it, it doesn’t look like that should be a move a guy can do without some pain.”

“It wouldn’t hurt you to learn,” Aizawa said to Hitoshi as he observed. “Mobility and flexibility can be your best friends in the field.”

Hitoshi looked worried that he was going to find himself being forced to learn how to do the splits right then and there, but Aizawa didn’t press the matter further.

“If you just try to stretch really well every day, you could be able to gain a good amount of flexibility,” Izuku told everyone watching. “It’s not like I could do it right away.”

As they were almost finished for the day, Vlad King burst into the gym and shouted, “That’s enough, Class A! Class B has this gym booked for the rest of the day! Eraser, get your kids cleared out of here.”

“We’ve still got ten minutes, Vlad,” Aizawa told him pointedly. “We’re going to be using all of it.”

Before the other teacher could be sent back out, his class flooded in, and the obnoxiously loud Monoma Neito made an appearance, dressed in a tuxedo with tails; watches attached to his belt. 

“Hey! Have you heard?” he called out, “About half of all participants taking the licensing test will _fail_! Going up against us, I’ll bet everyone in Class A fails! “ 

His laugh was almost maniacal as he went on about how he was going to show them who would come out on top. Kendo looked embarrassed for him, but Tokoyami pointed out the truth in Monoma’s words. 

“He’s right,” he said, Dark Shadow nodding along beside him. “It will be as beasts thrown in a ring together, forced to crush each other to succeed ourselves.”

“Not quite,” Aizawa assured them. “Classes A and B are registered to take the test at different sites.”

Vlad went on to explain how there were three testing sites, each in different regions of the country. The test was held twice a year, in June and September, and all classes were routinely separated so they wouldn’t be forced to compete against students from the same school.

Monoma gave a visible sigh of relief, but when Kirishima commented on it, changed his demeanor and began to brag again about what a shame it was that he wouldn’t be able to crush them with his own two hands. 

“They need to figure out a diagnosis for whatever disorder he’s got,” Kaminari said, shaking his head.

“So...I guess we’ll be going up against other schools?” Sero said thoughtfully. 

“Yeah. We’re also ahead of the typical licensing schedule,” Izuku pointed out.

“It’s a small number of first years that ever earn a provisional license. Most of the students you’ll be going up against have had more advanced training and more time to polish their skills. There will be many quirks you’ve never even seen before,” Aizawa told them seriously. 

Everyone looked slightly cowed at his words; looking at each other apprehensively. 

“The parameters of the test are unknown, but I can promise you it will be a difficult battle. Don’t psych yourself out over it; you wouldn’t be allowed to take the test if I thought you had no chance of passing. Just be aware of what you’re facing, and don’t get complacent.”

That night, the group was a bit more subdued as they finished their dinner and tried to unwind. There was only a couple of more days until the test, and the tension was mounting. Izuku was on his way to up to his room when Bakugou approached him.

“Meet me outside after lights out. I wanna have a talk with you about some stuff,” he said gruffly.

“Why can’t we talk now?” Izuku asked, not keen to be caught out after hours.

“Because it’s private, and I don’t think you want people over hearing what I have to say about you and your supposed ‘late’ quirk.”

“What makes you think I care what you have to say about it?” Izuku countered, not liking the direction this was going. He couldn’t help the slight tremor in his voice; old habits die hard.

“Problem?” Hitoshi said, suddenly appearing. 

“It’s fine, Tosh. Bakugou just wants to talk,” Izuku said, meeting his best friend’s eyes and relaying without words that he had it handled. “I was just about to suggest we ask Aizawa to mediate for us, since I have some idea what this is all about.”

“Aizawa knows?” Bakugou asked uncertainly. 

“That depends on what you’re referring to, but there’s not much about me or my quirk that he’s not aware of, so it would be safe to talk in front of him,” Izuku said firmly. “You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t trust you enough to meet you alone, outside of curfew.”

“Is there a problem, gentlemen?” Iida asked loudly, noticing the unlikely gathering of boys having a tense moment near the stairs.

“No problem, Tenya,” Izuku said, forcing a smile. “Just talking.”

Hitoshi gave Izuku a fist bump and a nod of approval. “Looks like you’ve got this handled.”

Izuku nodded and watched him walk away to distract Iida and the others, so that their conversation wasn’t the main focus of the room.

“I take it your little boyfriend there knows, too?” Bakugou asked with a sneer.

“Tosh is my best friend; there’s not a lot about me that he doesn’t know, either,” Izuku said without flinching. “Now, if you want to talk, then I’m fine with going to see Aizawa right now and getting this over with. Otherwise, I’ve got things to do.”

“Forget it,” Bakugou said sullenly, starting to turn away. 

“I think it’s a bit late for that,” Aizawa said from down the hall, near the door to his apartment. “Why don’t you two come and have a chat?”

Both sets of eyes swung toward their teacher, who was standing nearby, looking unimpressed. He stepped aside and pushed the door to his apartment open, and waited for the boys to file in.

The apartment was small, but not tiny. It had it’s own kitchen, living and dining areas, and there were a couple of doors that Izuku assumed led to bedrooms. The place was tidy, with small signs of habitation like a throw blanket left wrinkled on the couch, a coffee mug on the low table and stacks of papers that looked as though they were in the process of being graded. Present Mic’s voice could be heard on the radio playing quietly nearby from his nightly segment.

“I didn’t catch everything you were talking about,” Aizawa said, motioning for the two boys to take a seat. “But I heard enough that I think it’s time we had a talk.”

Izuku took a seat on the couch, leaving room for Bakugou beside him, but keeping a decent distance. Bakugou sat down and leaned back, with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Who wants to go first?” Aizawa said, when neither boy immediately started talking.

Izuku sighed and said, “Bakugou thinks he knows something about my quirk, and wanted to talk about it.”

“Okay, so...talk,” Aizawa said, looking pointedly at Bakugou.

“Look, I’m not stupid, okay? No one’s quirk just suddenly manifests at fuckin’ ten years old.” Bakugou said angrily.

“Except that mine did,” Izuku returned, “But we’ve been over this before. It’s not my problem if you don’t believe it.”

“Oh, I believe you were ten when you got it, I just don’t believe it was _your_ quirk that manifested,” Bakugou shot back.

“Explain,” Aizawa said with the same calm demeanor as always.

“Like I said, I’m not stupid. All Might died on the same day, in the same city where our class was on a field trip. Suddenly, Deku’s gone, the teachers are freaking out, and then his mother pulls him outta our school the very next day? It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out.”

“So you believe that Midoriya was there when All Might died?” Aizawa inferred from Bakugou’s words.

“Not only that, but then the next time I see him, he’s got a quirk! I’ll be damned if he had one before; there’s no way he could’ve hidden a quirk like that the whole time, after all the times we…” Bakugou stopped short, seeming stuck between a rock and a hard place.

“After all the times you bullied me, beat me up and treated me like crap?” Izuku finished for him.

Bakugou had the grace to look somewhat embarrassed, if the high color on his cheeks was anything to go by. “There’s no way he wouldn’t have fought back or showed it off, that way. When we were little, he was always following me around saying how great my quirk is and how much he hoped his was as cool when he got one.”

“Brilliant deduction. The fact that it was easy to bully me wasn’t enough of a clue that I was quirkless back then. Congratulations,” Izuku said acidly.

“So then I just thought he was a freak, and really did just get his quirk late because he was such a fuckin’ weakling,” Bakugou continued.

“But you don’t believe that now?” Aizawa prompted.

“Not after I did a little research,” Bakugou admitted. “Everyone kept saying how Deku’s quirk is so much like All Might’s. Then I found some old information about that villain, All For One, and how he could transfer and steal other people’s quirks. He was a big time villain back when quirks were still somewhat rare, so it was hard to believe that he could still be around, and there wasn’t a lot about him on the internet...but it started to make sense. I don’t know how, but I think that All For One guy somehow gave Deku All Might’s quirk before All Might died.”

“Wow,” Izuku said, honestly amazed at how the other boy could come so close, and still get it so wrong. “This is a great story...so why would he give me All Might’s quirk, instead of keeping for himself?”

“How the fuck should I know?”

“Boys,” Aizawa said, rubbing at his eyes.

“I don’t know _how_ or _why_,” Bakugou said stubbornly. “I just know that after being there when All Might died, Deku disappeared, then suddenly had a quirk almost exactly like All Might’s. Then he gets noticed and abducted by the same guy that killed All Might? That’s too much of a coincidence to be anything else.”

“Assuming you’re right, and Midoriya magically somehow received All Might’s quirk…,” Aizawa said patiently. “What would that have to do with you?”

Izuku and Aizawa both looked at Bakugou expectantly. ”If it’s true, then Deku’s the one I have to beat to be the best. No one was better than All Might, ever. If Deku is the new All Might, then this is my chance!”

“He’s not the new All Might,” Aizawa said. “All Might is gone, and as great of a hero as he was, there won’t be another exactly like him. Even if, as you say, Midoriya has the same quirk, he’s still going to be a completely different hero than All Might was. The only one comparing a victory over Midoriya to a victory over All Might would be anyone who didn’t understand that.”

Izuku didn’t add anything to that. What could he really say? Bakugou might know a little of his secret, but not the most important aspect of it, which was being able to pass it on to another person. In the long run, what did it matter how similar his quirk was to All Might’s? 

“Is there anything else on your mind that you want to get out in the open?” their teacher asked, giving Bakugou the opportunity to get everything off of his chest.

“Yes,” he answered. “Is the League of Villains after me?”

Izuku’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline, and Aizawa’s dropped into a scowl.

“We don’t know,” Aizawa answered bluntly. “There’s a possibility, but a lot of things have changed since training camp.”

“What do you mean?” Izuku asked, sitting up straight. “Did I miss something?”

“They grabbed me,” Bakugou said, not looking at Izuku, but at Aizawa. “That Compress guy had me in that little marble thing, but let me go. Did he do that just to get me out of the way, or was I one of the targets?”

Izuku tried to remember the night he was abducted from the training camp, and the events leading up to it. Mr. Compress had captured both Shouto and Bakugou in the chaos of the nomu fight, and Hitoshi had used their teacher’s capture weapon to make the villain drop one of the marbles. Bakugou had been spared, while Shouto and Izuku had been taken.

“He said they had what they came for,” Izuku realized. “When he was holding Shouto and Bakugou.”

Aizawa nodded. “Yet they made no mention of Bakugou while you were there,” he said. “Not according to your statements.”

“That’s true. His name never came up, that I remember...though I was drugged most of the time.” Izuku confirmed. “Why would they want him?”

“A good question, that we only have theories about,” Aizawa said. “But since the League is now leaderless, it may be a moot point.”

“What theories?” Bakugou demanded, sitting up and leaning forward. “Why do you think they grabbed me?”

“Why do _you_ think they might have grabbed you?” Aizawa turned the question around on him.

“How the fuck should I know? That’s why I’m asking you!”

Izuku snorted, having a good guess, but was willing to keep quiet for the sake of peace.

“You have a guess, shitstain?” Bakugou growled at him derisively.

Izuku looked to Aizawa as if to ask, ‘_Do you really want me to say it out loud?_’

“What do you think the reason might be, Midoriya?” Aizawa asked, giving permission.

Izuku turned to face Bakugou, meeting his angry gaze with a level one. “You were first in the Sports Festival, so they saw how strong you are. It would have also been obvious that you have excellent battle skills and a talent for strategy.”

“So? They same could be true for any of the other finishers on the podium, including the second and third year winners.” Bakugou pointed out.

Izuku sighed, but continued, “But none of them acted like a raving lunatic or had to be restrained for the ceremony.”

Bakugou remained silent.

“They probably thought you were some kind of kindred spirit,” Izuku finished. “They probably wanted you to join them.”

Bakugou looked _livid_, but it was unclear if the target of his rage was Izuku for pointing it out, himself for behaving that way and making himself a target, or the villains for coming to such a conclusion.

“They...they wanted to _recruit_ me?” Bakugou asked in a furious whisper, his voice shaking. It rose in volume as his emotions took over. “Fuck you! Fuck that shit! I’m no villain! Is that what you think? _Is that what everyone thinks_?”

“I don’t think you’re a villain,” Izuku told him honestly, “I just think you’re an asshole. Plenty of heroes out there are assholes, including the current number one. You’re strong and determined, I’ll say that much.”

“We know you’re not a villain,” Aizawa reiterated. “I’ve seen your progress and you’re working as hard as anyone to achieve your goals. If we were worried that you could be swayed to join the League, you wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”

Bakugou didn’t seem very appeased by this, but settled down a little.

“That being said, we need to make one of your goals anger management and controlling your temper,” Aizawa said sardonically. “The eyes of the world are upon you from the moment you set food in Yuuei; you need to make sure they’re only seeing what you _want_ them to see.”

Bakugou nodded, looking thoughtful, though still angry. 

“Are we done here, or is there more you want to talk about?” Aizawa asked, waiting for either boy to speak up. When neither of them did, he nodded, “It would do you good to remember that anything we’ve discussed stays in this room. All of it. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Izuku answered, getting to his feet.

“Got it,” Bakugou said. “It’s not like I want everyone knowing the villains think I’m like them.”

“It’s almost curfew. Get some sleep, I’m going to be working you to the bone for the next couple of days, right up until the test.”

Aizawa was true to his word. They trained hard, had mock battles and rescue simulations and were quizzed endlessly about scenarios they might encounter and how they’d handle them.

The last day of training before the ‘Big Day’ consisted of each of them pairing up with someone they wouldn’t normally pair well with in an emergency situation, because their quirks weren’t necessarily a good combination. They worked together to figure out ways they could work around their differences and make them assets. 

Izuku was paired for the first time with Hagakure, and after some brainstorming and a lot of enthusiasm, they decided that simple was best. Hagakure made an excellent stumbling block, as long as Izuku could tell where she was, so he didn’t trip over her, himself. She could enter a fight behind a villain and distract them or merely trip them up, so that Izuku could use that to take the villain down with his strength and agility.

After Hagakure, he was paired with Koda, which was a much more daunting combination, because there were no animals to use to practice with, and they couldn’t think of anything other than a similar plan with Hagakure, where animals such as birds could be used to distract while Deku used the holes in the villain’s defense to take them down. Koda was still relatively timid, but enthusiastic and willing to help at any given time. Izuku thought he’d be great in the rescue field, one day.

The exercises made Izuku more aware of how important it was to try to find partners with compatible quirks when working together in some situations.

In between training, there were sessions with the counselor. As promised, Izuku attended Shouto’s first session with Koizumi-san. He had seen her every other day for the first week, then arranged to see her weekly thereafter. Izuku was not allowed to leave campus to see his own counselor. Instead, arrangements were made for her to visit Yuuei every couple of weeks for the foreseeable future. They helped.

At the end of the final day for training before the Provisional License Test, Aizawa finally gave in and let Bakugou have what he’d been demanding all summer: a real fight with Deku. Aizawa seemed to have a point to make that only the two combatants were aware of. He would let them fight and figure out their own place in the class hierarchy as far as battle prowess and strength went. 

The gym was turned into a battle zone of sorts, with small hills, foxholes, pillars and different terrains all over. The other students gathered near their teacher to observe, with robots placed around to film and score the match.

The rules were simple enough. They would fight on a points based system, and the first to get five hits on the other would be declared the winner of the match. Quirks were allowed, but there could be no ‘dirty’ fighting, such as explosions to the eyes, throat punching,or anything that might result in serious injury to the other party. If one fighter conceded the match before the five hits, they’d lose by default.

“You’d better not hold back, Deku,” Bakugou growled at him as they walked to the center of the gym. He was determined to prove to everyone that he was the stronger combatant. “I want to beat you fair and square!”

“Fine, but you should know that if I don’t hold back,” Deku deadpanned, cracking his neck with a couple of sharp jerks of his head, “you won’t beat me.”

Those were the only words Bakugou needed to start the match. He threw a punch straight for Deku’s face, but it never landed. Deku had dropped low and swept Bakugou’s legs out from under him, using his superior speed to throw a punch of his own, straight to the ribs before jumping backward out of range. 

Furious that Deku had gotten the first hit, Bakugou literally exploded to his feet and pursued, shouting with rage. As soon as he got within range, he landed, using his explosive quirk to add thrust to his punch. 

Izuku saw the move coming, and wasn’t _quite_ fast enough to dodge the fist, taking a hard clip to the chin in order to get his opponent close enough to grab by the upper arm. He twisted his foot and pulled with both arms, green crackling along the surface of his skin as he threw Bakugou hard over his shoulder with enough force to stun him. Placing an iron-clad foot on the other boy’s chest, he asked with a feral grin, “Do you concede?”

“I haven’t even gotten started!” Bakugou said, bringing both hands up to grasp Izuku’s leg. 

Even as Bakugou set off twin blasts at Deku’s knee, Deku was doing a back handspring, landing with a thud a couple of meters away. Smoke rose from the fabric of his costume, but left it unscathed, thanks both to it’s original design, and the new braces that left him with little more than a stinging ache where he’d taken the hit.

Deku watched as Bakugou sprang to his feet, then Izuku _STOMPED_ the ground as hard as his quirk would allow, causing a minor earthquake that threw his opponent off of his feet once more. Rebounding off of a stone pillar to his left, Deku then moved in a blur of verdant lightning, seized the front of Bakugou’s costume, He threw him bodily through the air like a rag doll, to hit the same pillar he’d just used for momentum, causing Bakugou to slam into it, face first and fall to the ground.

Deku watched from where he stood, but when Bakugou didn’t get back up, he moved cautiously forward and saw that Bakugou seemed to be unconscious. A moment later, Aizawa was crouching next to his fallen student, checking on him. “Knocked out. Deku wins.”

“Whoa!” Kirishima said from a couple of meters behind his teacher. “I thought we were in for a long knock-down, drag-out battle! That was only, like, a minute, tops!”

“Nice,” Hitoshi said in satisfaction, coming forward to look down on Bakugou, who was starting to show signs of life.

“What happened?” Bakugou asked, sounding dazed. 

“You got your clock cleaned,” Hitoshi told him with a smirk.

“Bullshit!” Bakugou said, moving to sit up, and then gripping his head in both hands. “I can still fight!”

“You’re done,” Aizawa told him flatly. “Kirishima, take him to Recovery Girl.”

“Like hell! There’s no way I lost to that useless Deku!” he said defiantly, even as Kirishima was giving him a hand up. 

“Get going,” Aizawa told him. “The rest of you, get changed and go to homeroom for the last instructions before tomorrow’s test.”

Bakugou griped the whole way out of the gym, with Kirishima trying to soothe him and propel him toward the school to be checked for a concussion.

“You’ve gotten stronger,” Shouto told Izuku as he fell into step with him on the way to the locker room. “I’d like to fight you again sometime, with both of us using our quirks properly.”

“I’d like that, too,” Izuku said with a sunny smile. “This time without running face first into a wall.”

Shouto smiled at that, and Hitoshi caught up with them, slinging an arm around Shouto’s shoulder. “So you think you can pin down Zu, now?” he asked with a mischievous glint in his eye. “Or do you think he’ll come out on top?”

Izuku thought that maybe next time Hitoshi washed his hair, he might find hair remover in the shampoo bottle, instead of just temporary dye. For now, he settled on just punching him on the arm.

“I don’t know, at this point,” Shouto said consideringly. “That’s why I want to try fighting him again, so we can find out. We’ve both made real progress.”

“Progress is good!” Hitoshi said encouragingly. 

They reached the locker room, and everyone got changed, then trudged to class, tired, but happy with what they’d accomplished in the past couple of weeks. In class, they were given particulars on what to wear, where to meet and what time they would expected to be ready.

The next day found them all stepping off of their bus at the National Takoba Arena: testing grounds for the provisional licensing test, feeling apprehensive. There were several other buses lined along the curb, and Izuku could see at least two other school uniforms represented among the students milling around.

“Takoba, huh? Now I’m getting nervous,” Izuku murmured, looking a the building and feeling the thrum of excitement tinged with fear surge through him.

“This is it,” Hagakure said, clutching at Uraraka’s arm.

“Can we really do this?” Uraraka asked herself, as much as anyone.

“It’s not a question of can,” Aizawa told her, bending slightly to make sure he had her full attention. “You _will_.”

Everyone who heard him stood a little straighter, taking comfort in his words. They had absolute faith that their teacher would not give them false hope. He would not be letting them tackle this test after only three months of school if he didn’t believe they had a shot at success. 

“When you earn your provisional licenses by passing this test, you’ll no longer be eggs; you’ll be full-fledged hatchlings, reborn as semi-pro heroes! Show them your _best_.”

“Yeah! Let’s hatch from those eggs!” cried Kirishima, Sero and Kaminari, punching the air excitedly.

“Let’s do our cheer!” Ashido yelled.

Everyone gathered a little closer and shouted, “_**PLUS ULTRA!**_”

Except...there was one voice much louder than the others, and… it didn’t belong to a Yuuei student. Even Todoroki looked shocked to see a very tall student wearing the uniform from another school standing at the edge of their group, yelling out the Yuuei school motto.

“It’s rude to intrude on another school’s huddle, Inasa.” said another student in the same uniform as the intruder’s.

“Ah! You caught me!” Inasa said, not looking ashamed at all. 

He stood very tall and straight, as if competing with Iida in a stiffness competition, then bowed backward a little more. “I. Am. So. Very. SORRY!” he announced, bending swiftly in a bow so deep that he slammed his head into the sidewalk.

Everyone cringed or recoiled as they watched the spectacle unfold, mystified by the goings on.

“Who is this whack-job?” Kaminari demanded, pointing rudely at Inasa.

“”He’s like Iida and Kirishima mashed together, times ten!” Sero declared.

Hitoshi simply snorted at the ridiculousness of the situation, and leaned against Izuku companionably. “This guy’s great,” he said in a murmur.

Izuku was mildly amused, but also horrified. Inasa had hit his head on the ground hard enough to draw blood from his scalp, just before a major test. Was he really going to be alright?

Other students were beginning to notice the two schools interacting (if that’s what you could all it) with each other. “Oh! It’s them! That famous school from the west!”

“Yuuei in the east, Shiketsu High in the west,” Bakugou supplied.”Theirs is one of the few elite schools that can rival Yuuei.”

As if his announcement was an introduction and invitation, several students stepped forward to stand around Inasa. They wore dark pants or skirts and short sleeved buttoned up shirts, but the most distinctive feature was the hat. Each student proudly wore a dark, military-style hat with Shiketsu’s emblem on the front.

“I JUST REALLY WANTED TO TRY SAYING IT! PLUS ULTRA!!” Inasa practically shouted enthusiastically. “I FREAKIN’ LOVE YUUEI HIGH! IT’S A REAL HONOR TO BE ABLE TO COMPETE ALONGSIDE THE FINE STUDENTS OF YUUEI!”

“Ah! He’s bleeding,” one of the female Shiketsu students pointed out.

“Let’s go,” answered her classmate without concern.

They all turned to head toward the arena.

“Yorashi Inasa,” Aizawa said aloud, watching them go.

“You know him, sensei?” Hagakure asked.

“He seems really enthusiastic,” Kirishima observed, “But also like a nice guy.”

“Yorashi was a top pick for a special recommendation student in your grade at Yuuei,” Aizawa told them. “His excellent grades were enough to open doors for him, but in the end, he decided to attend Shiketsu, instead.”

“Huh? He’s a first year?” Izuku couldn’t help but be amazed. “And TOP recommendation student? Does that mean he’s even better than Shouto?”

Shouto watched Inasa with curiosity, but said nothing.

“That’s no small task,” Hitoshi commented. 

“He seems like a huge fan of Yuuei, but he didn’t want to attend? Weird,” Sero said.

“Super weird,” Ashido agreed.

“Weird or not, he’s the real deal. You should keep an eye one him.” Aizawa told them seriously.

“Eraser? Is that you?” A woman approached, then. She was wearing green and orange striped bloomers and a black sleeveless top, and her aqua colored hair was covered by an orange bandanna.

Aizawa’s mouth dropped open, and he looked unpleasantly surprised to see the woman.

“I saw you on TV for the Sports Festival and at that press conference, but it’s been too long since we’ve seen each other face to face!” Once she was close enough, she stopped and announced, “Leave Mic, and let’s get married!”

“No thanks,” Aizawa said, he expression bland.

Ashido fairly screamed at the pronouncement, possibly thinking there was a dramatic past love dynamic about to unfold.

“No thanks? That’s it?” the woman laughed.

“That’s Ms. Joke!” Izuku said to Shouto and Hitoshi. “Her quirk is called _Outburst_! She makes her opponents laugh, which confuses them and slows their movements and thoughts! The way she takes down villains is crazy!”

“If you married me, we could have a lifetime of together in a house where the laughter never ends!” Ms Joke told him confidently.

“That sounds more like a nightmare scenario,” Aizawa answered.

“So are the two of you friends?” Asui asked, looking confused.

“Our agencies used to be near each other back in the day. I’d save him a few times, he’d save me… We fell in live, and you know how it goes…” Ms Joke said.

“It doesn’t go,” Aizawa said. “It went nowhere. So, is your school here, too?”

“Teasing you is always good for a laugh,” she answered with no trace of disappointment. “And yes, they are!”

She waved over a group of students who were wearing a more casual school uniform of gray polo shirts and pants or skirts. 

“Wowee! It’s them! From the TV!” said a girl with sharp teeth.

“Taking the test as first years? I guess all that experience you’ve gotten lately had paid off for you,” said another student with a very large forehead and small eyes.

“Whoa! It’s you!” A tall boy broke from the small crowd of students that Ms Joke had called over and approached Izku, grabbing his hands. He had similar features to Izuku, including the curly hair (though black instead of green), and an enthusiastic air about him.

“Say hello to my students. This is Class 2-2 from Ketsubutsu Academy,” Ms Joke supplied.

“I’m Shindo!” the boy holding Izuku’s hands announced. “Yuuei’s sure had it hard this year, huh?”

“Uh...yeah?” Izuku replied, perplexed. 

Before Izuku could even return the greeting or introduce himself, Shindo had moved on, shaking hands with the others. “The hits just keep coming, but you’re still all striving to become heroes! That’s Awesome! I believe that the heroes of tomorrow need to have that kind of fortitude!”

He gave off a bright and energetic aura that was slightly off-putting. His sparkling attitude put Aoyama to shame in that moment as he made himself the center of attention. When he moved to Bakugou, he smiled even wider. 

“And best of all, here’s Bakugou! The winner of the Sports Festival and arguably the strongest in your class! It’s a pleasure to…”

Bakugou smacked away the offered hand with a scowl. “Cut the crap. What your mouth’s saying and what your eyes are saying don’t match. Go peddle your bullshit to someone else.”

Izuku didn’t miss the speculative look that came over Shindo’s face at Bakugou’s words.

“Hey man, chill!” Kirishima said to Bakugou. He turned to Shindo, “Sorry he so rude.”

“No problem! He’s just got a strong will,” Shindo said easily.

The girl with sharp teeth moved toward Shouto, then. “Hey I saw you at the Sports Festival! Your quirk is so cool! Can I have your autograph?”

“Uh...sure?” Shouto answered, looking at Izuku with bewilderment.

“All of you quit wasting time and go get changed into your costumes. The information session is about to start!” Aizawa called to them.

“Yes, sensei!” 

They moved to go inside and found the locker room crowded and noisy. When they entered the main hall, it was to find the main hall absolutely packed with hero hopefuls.

“There’s at least a thousand students in here,” Hitoshi said, as he stepped up beside Izuku.

“More than that,” Shouto said from Izuku’s other side.

“Only half of us are going to pass?” Izuku asked with wonder. “That’s still a lot of licenses being given out!”

“We need to be in that number,” Hitoshi said. “Don’t let your soft heart make you feel sorry for anyone who fails.”

“I know,” Izuku said. “Everyone is an opponent. Speaking of which...we’re at a huge disadvantage.”

“Because we’re first years?” Shouto asked.

“Because anyone who watched the Sports Festival already knows our quirks,” Izuku corrected. “And we don’t know any of theirs. We should try to stick together as much as possible and work as a team, if we can.”

“Oh, crap, you’re right!” Ashido said from behind them. “They’ll probably come for us, first.

“I’d be money on it,” Izuku said. “They’ve probably trained around what information they got from the Sports Festival. Our only real advantage is that they don’t know how much we’ve improved or what we’re capable of _now_.”

They all nodded thoughtfully as an obviously sleep deprived man in a rumpled suit made his way to the podium at the front of the room. Everyone quieted down to listen to what he had to say.

“I’m Mera with the Heroes Public Safety Commission. My favorite type of sleep is non-REM sleep. Nice to meet you all.” The man spoke in a slow, monotone voice that sounded as though he might drop off to sleep and any moment. He leaned heavily on the podium as though it was the only thing keeping him upright.

Izuku wondered if his quirk was to blame, or just a heavy workload in preparing for all of the applicants. “He looks even more tired than you, Tosh!” he whispered to his friend.

Hitoshi snorted a laugh, but didn’t take his eyes off of the man speaking.

“Right. The Provisional License Exam. That’s what you’re all here for. _I just want to sleep! I’m terribly sleep deprived! Work is incredibly understaffed, and I barely get any sleep!_” the man intones, sounding almost on the verge of tears. “With that important information out of the way, let me explain the exam.”

Everyone looked slightly bewildered by the man, but it got even more quiet as they waited for details.

“Getting right to it: all 1540 of you here will be competing in a massive free-for-all exercise.”

Murmurs of excitement buzzed around the room for a moment, and man faces took on predatory expressions.

“Today’s society is saturated with heroes, many in response to the void left behind when All Might died. Now, especially since Stain’s capture, many out there are questioning the role heroes should play.”

Izuku and Tenya’s eyes met as they both remembered Stain’s belief that Heroes should not look for recompense or reward, and a true hero could only be born through tireless self-sacrifice.

“That said, regardless of your motivations for becoming a hero, whether for compensation or out of dedication to the cause, there is no shortage of heroes out there working to save people and put villains away.” Mera’s voice was a little less groggy sounding as he continued. “Nowadays the time it takes to resolve any incident is incredibly short. Those of you who earn your provisional license today will be confronting situations that will unfold at a breakneck pace. Those who can’t keep up, are doomed to _fail_. That’s why this will be a contest of _speed_. That’s why only the first one hundred of you to meet the requirement will pass.”

The room erupted into confusion and upset, with people shouting out, “One hundred out of 1540? That’s insane! That’s not even close to being half!”

“Are you kidding me?”

“That’s less than ten percent!”

“The world is rarely fair,” Mera intoned, unphased by the complaints shouted from every corner of the room. “And society isn’t always kind. There is no relying on luck.”

Izuku’s hands balled into fists, and he started to tremble before he felt a hand fall on each of his shoulders. On one side, Hitoshi held him stead, grounding him silently, and on the other, Shouto was giving his shoulder a squeeze of reassurance. Izuku swallowed hard and nodded to himself. He could do this.

“The passing requirements involve these.” Mera held up a ball and a flat device that looked like a disc of some sort.

Mera went on to explain that each participant would be given three targets and six balls. They would put the targets in visible places on their bodies (no armpits or soles of feet) and if a ball struck one, it would light up. Once all three targets were lit, you were out of the competition. The first one hundred examinees who knock two opponents out pass and move on to the next stage.

“We’ll be handing out the balls and targets as soon as this place opens up, then the competition will begin one minute after everyone is equipped.”

“Opens up?” Shouto asked, looking upward.

There was a rumble, then. The ceiling started to lift, and the walls began to fold down to reveal that they had been standing in a huge box the entire time. The real stadium was revealed all around them, with different areas that held different landscapes.

“With every type of landscape,” Mera told them, “You should have no problem finding one suited to you.”

Everyone looked around in awe. 

“So, what’s the plan?” Hitoshi asked Izuku quietly while they waited for the distribution of the equipment.

“I’m going to guess that schools won’t want to compete against their own classmates, so it will turn into a school against school battle,” Izuku said quickly. “Our best bet is going to be sticking together like I said before. Pretty much everyone here probably sees us as easy pickings, so we’re going to need to show them differently. 

“Yeah!” Ashido cheered.

“That seems reasonably prudent,” Tokoyami agreed.

“Lets watch each other’s backs!” Shouji said from a mouth on his tentacle.

“No way,” Bakugou denied as he slapped his targets to himself. “I’m not having anyone say that I only won because I had backup!”

“Dude! Don’t be dumb!” Kirishima said, following him as he walked away.

“We should move as a group and be ready for an ambush,” Izuku told everyone.

They all nodded and moved together once they were equipped.

“Don’t hesitate to take your chances where you get them,” he directed. “We’re a team, but it really is up to us an individuals to achieve our goals.”

The group fled to an open space with stone walls spread out intermittently, but before they had time to decide which landscape they would choose, the one minute grace period was over.  
Suddenly a huge group of students from multiple schools rushed in at once toward class 1-A.

“Super strength that breaks your own bones,” Shindo said as he appeared before Izuku. “The nail that sticks out farthest gets hammered first!”

Class 1-A responded as one, moving quickly to eliminate obstacles and smack away flying balls.

“Everyone stick together and move as one!” Izuku called out.

One of the Ketsubutsu students tried to send balls that he’d altered with his quirk underground to come at them, but Jiro was able to stop them with her heartbeat amplification move, that dug them right out of the ground. Ashido used her move _Acid Veil_ to dissolve several balls that had been about to hit Hitoshi. Hitoshi was wielding a bo staff once more and deftly batted balls away, and Dark Shadow intercepted any falling from overhead at them.

“This isn’t the same class we saw on TV at the Sports Festival,” Shindo said to his classmates, loudly enough for all to hear. “They’ve grown stronger.”

Mera’s voice could be heard around them, at that point:

_ **”Huh. All battles seem to be at a stalemate at the moment. Not a single participant as passed or dropped out, yet. Oh yeah...Just to let you know, I’ll be doing play by play announcements from the broadcasting booth.”** _

“Everyone’s just too good to get knocked out that quickly,” Izuku muttered to himself. “We’re all still analyzing each other and protecting our weak spots right now. Thinks are definitely about to get ramped up.”

Izuku didn’t have much time for more than a quick glance at his friends when he heard Shindo shout, “TIME TO SPLIT THEM UP! MAXIMUM FORCE: TREMORING EARTH!”

The earth began to shake, then, violently. Rocks and earth were tossed everywhere, and so was anyone standing on them. There were surprised shouts from all sides, and by the time Izuku got to his feet and was trying to get oriented, his classmates were all scattered and gone from his sight.

“Shit,” Izuku said, spitting out the dust that still hung heavily in the air. “We’re all sitting ducks on our own. I’ve gotta try to regroup with everyone I can.”

_ **”Come on, get with the program. (*yawn*) Doesn’t anyone feel like passing today?”** _

Mera’s voice sounded beyond bored. Then:

_ **Finally, it seems like somebody is gonna pass this thing. WHOA! ONE HUNDRED EXAMINEES ARE OUT, ALL TAKEN DOWN BY A SINGLE FIGHTER!” NOTHING LIKE A HUGE SURPRISE LIKE THAT YOU WAKE YOU UP AND GET YOUR BLOOD PUMPING! KEEP UP THE PACE!** _

Izuku blinked at the news that a single person had taken out so many people at once. What kind of quirk could allow them to gather that many balls and hit that many targets at once? It was crazy! Maybe he really was as outclassed here as they seemed to think he was?

No. They might have a whole years worth or more of extra training. They might have more experience with battle analysis and teamwork, but there was no way they more determination. Izuku gave a feral sort of smile to think of how he was up against the best of the best students, but was going to come out ahead of them!

A moment later, as the dust was still settling on the ruined landscape, Izuku felt the hairs on the back of his neck lift in warning. Just a second too late, one of the targets on his chest lit up with a small _plink_ as a body flew overhead and landed neatly in front of him as he turned to track her movement.

“Not very smart to stand around on a battlefield smiling to yourself,” the girl said, readjusting her hat. “Weird, but still kinda cool.”

Izuku sized up his opponent while asking himself where the heck she had even come from. She had seemed to appear out of thin air!

This girl was from Shiketsu, he remembered. She was pretty, with a pouty lower lip and big eyes and some seriously good moves.

“In a crazy exam like this, I knew that everyone would target the people from other schools that they knew the most about. That means all of the Yuuei students who participated in the Sports Festival. I thought I’d come pick through the rubble to see if I could find you before the others got here to take you out.” she said, almost conversationally.

“You talk too much,” Izuku told her.

“I just wanted to get to know more about other strong schools, and this seemed like a good opportunity! I want to know more about Yuuei!”

Izuku tried to tune out her voice and concentrate. It wouldn’t be long before Ketsubutsu regrouped and showed up to finish things, and this girl was from Shiketsu. Was she really confident enough to take him on by herself, or were her classmates nearby, waiting to back her up? When he was ready, he made his move, lunging forward with a ball in hand, intent on tagging one of her targets with it.

Except, she wasn’t there. He dove away in time to avoid having another of his targets lit up, but it was a close call. He turned and tried again, only for her to disappear from where he’d just seen her. Any time he took his eyes off of her, she seemed to disappear.

“You’re probably thinking I have a vanishing quirk, huh?” her voice came from behind him, and he felt her hand on his back a moment before she took him to the ground, twisting his arm up behind his back and pinning him down with her body. “But you’re wrong. This is all _technique_.”

Izuku strained against her hold, well aware that he was running out of time. 

“I was simply hiding from your eyes and ears. I just have to hold my breath and not think...the not thinking is the hard part. When I stop breathing, I blend in.”

“They teach you that at Shiketsu?” Izuku asked, seriously impressed and unnerved at the same time. “I want to learn that.”

“The trick is to not see the training as training. Looks like there’s a lot we could learn about each other. You turn. Why do you want to become a hero? Fame? Honor? Pride? For someone else?”

Izuku had had enough of a breather, and was getting suspicious and a little creeped out by his captor. When she leaned in close to murmur, “I want to get to know all about you,” she changed her center of gravity just enough to Izuku to throw her off and break free. 

At almost the same moment, something hit the ground between them, sending them both backward. 

“Aw man, Shiketsu’s here, too. What a pain!” a voice said from above.

“Crap.” was all Izuku said as he looked up and saw a line of Ketsubutsu students lining the ridge of churned up rock around him. _’This is the worst possible scenario. I wasted too much time with the Shiketsu girl, and now I’m stuck without my classmates and surrounded by hostiles. I’ll just have to dodge. This isn’t going to be easy.’_

A barrage of balls and quirks came at him at that point, and Izuku was in constant motion, dodging, flipping, tumbling and running to keep from being tagged. When he heard a voice call out, “Are you okay?” he felt a surge of relief. He turned to see Uraraka standing atop a pillar of rock a few meters away.

“Over here!” she called, holding out her hand and motioning him over. “Hurry!”

_’What’s her plan?’_ Izuku asked himself as he watched her.

Suddenly, she cried out as she was attacked from the back by more opponents, and a barrage of balls hurtled her way. Her foot hit the edge and she began to fall backward. 

Without hesitation, Izuku shot forward and intercepted, catching her before she could hit the ground. Using the iron soles, with their double action feature, Izuku kicked the pillar that Uraraka had fallen from, destroying any foothold their opponents might have had. He carried her to a shielded spot and set her down then turned to peer around the stone wall beside them, to determine if they were being pursued.

“Thanks. Sorry I’m so clumsy,” she said.

“It’s okay really,” he said, still with his back turned.

The fine hairs on Izuku’s neck warned him once more of imminent danger, and he turned in time to slap the ball from Uraraka’s hand just as she was about to hit the target on his ribs.

“Do you want to tell me who you really are? Uraraka is not clumsy and can float herself, so she never would have fallen like that.” Izuku said, eyeing the girl warily. “So are you from Shiketsu or something?”

“You knew, and you still saved me? Why?” She asked.

Izuku let out a small strangled sound when ‘Uraraka’s’ face started to melt.

“Since I knew you weren’t Uraraka, I knew that letting you hit the ground from that height would have really hurt you. You might have even broken your back,” Izuku said simply. He was hero, after all, and heroes saved people who didn’t always necessarily deserve it.

“I see. So that’s your reason.” Once Uraraka’s visage had melted away, he was once again facing the Shiketsu student from before; only this time she was _naked._


	28. The Consequences of Our Actions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The provisional license test is more difficult for some than others. The aftermath turns out to be bittersweet.

“What the hell? Where did your clothes go? You can’t be naked here! Put something on!” Izuku babbled as she advanced on him.

“So you’ll really help anyone? Where do you draw the line?” She asked, speeding forward and making a swipe for him with clawed fingers.

_’Now she’s trying to scratch me? What’s up with this girl?”_ he thought wildly, while dodging. He wasn’t quite quick enough, and he could feel the sting on his cheekbone where one of her nails had ripped into his skin, drawing blood.

Just as she was about to make another lunge, a pair of thick tape strips shot between her and Izuku, causing her to retreat.

“Deku!” Uraraka called, appearing with a concerned expression.

“Aw. Too bad! I really, really wanted to talk to you more, but I guess it’ll have to wait for next time!” the girl said, flipping away to land crouched on a tall outcropping of rock with amazing agility. “Uraraka Ochako! He really does trust you a lot!”

“What?” Uraraka asked, looking confused. 

The girl stood from her perch and sped away, 

“Come back here, you perv!” Sero called, preparing to capture her with his tape.

“No!” Izuku said, holding up a hand to stop him. “She managed to get rid of her clothes, targets and all. Even if she’s not disqualified for it, it’ll be impossible to get a score off of her in the time we have left.”

Sero relented and hopped down to join his two classmates.

“You two are actually you, right?” Izuku asked, scrutinizing them closely.

“Uh...yeah?” Uraraka said.

“Last time I checked,” Sero confirmed. “I saw Uraraka up on that pillar and came running. Everyone got scattered, and she’s the first person from 1-A I’ve run into.”

“That wasn’t Uraraka,” Izuku muttered. “It was someone pretending to be her. Anyway, there are three of us now, and we need a plan.”

_ **“Fifty-eight people have now passed the test, that leaves forty-eight spots left.”** _

“Okay, we should wait here.There’s a hunting party from other schools of at least ten people, and we’re outnumbered.” Izuku said, formulating a plan in his head.

“But you said earlier that the key was to stick together. How do we do that now?” Sero asked, sounding slightly panicked.

“We originally thought that the test was about aiming and throwing accurately in a stressful situation, but that’s not it,” Izuku surmised. “We’re already in the dark about other school's quirks, and everyone is guarding their targets. We need to make it easy for us all to pass. What we need to do is to capture enough students for our entire class to pass. We’ll bind them with Sero’s tape or Hitoshi’s capture weapon, when he finds us, and then we can each just take out one opponent a piece until we’re done.”

“Easier said than done,” Sero said. “Wait ...I hear them coming.”

“I’m going out there. I’m going to be bait. Uraraka, you and Sero will capture them while they’re distracted by me.”

“Got it!” Uraraka said immediately. 

“Wait. What? You’re okay with this?” Sero demanded.

“Deku is a genius with this stuff. I trust him,” she said simply.

Deku put his mask in place, to make sure his eyes, mouth and nose were protected before leaping out of the cover of their hiding spot. He zipped around another rock, badly concealing himself as he trusted his friends to do their part. 

The game of cat and mouse that followed was both fun and dangerous, as Deku narrowly avoided being captured or tagged while he flitted around. He got lucky twice and hit two students’ targets while providing distraction. It didn’t surprise him much when he noted that there was suddenly a long frog-like tongue joining the tape being flung about, and soon after that, a capture weapon could be seen snagging kids running past. Within a few minutes they had not only captured a dozen students, they’d attracted the attention of six more classmates.

Uraraka concocted and executed a brilliant plan with Sero’s tape and anti-gravity boulders, timing it perfectly for maximum effect with minimum injuries.

_ **”Seventy-six students have passed! We’re getting down to the final stretch, ladies and gentlemen.”** _

“We’d better claim our spots,” Sero said, once they’d regrouped. “Deku, you should go first.”

Izuku grasped his ball and approached one of the downed students.

“C’mon, man! You’re just first years, right? You’ve got two more years to pass this! We _need_ these licenses! It’s a matter of life or death!”

“Yeah,” Izuku said, unimpressed with the begging. “Same here.”

Each of them took their turns, and the announcement went out.

_ **”Eighty-five people have no passed. Only fifteen spots remaining!”** _

Izuku and the others left the field and went into the waiting room to see who else from their class had passed. Inside, they found that Kaminari, Bakugou and Kirishima had all passed together.

“So you made it, huh?” Bakugou said to Izuku as their groups met. “Figures, with _that_ power.”

Though it was odd for Bakugou to be talking to him without insults or shouting, Izuku didn’t have time to wonder if the comment was meant as a compliment or not. As several of them celebrated together, Izuku’s eyes scanned the crowd anxiously. He felt a huge surge of relief when he spotted Shouto, but Tenya was still missing, as were Aoyama, Tokoyami, Koda, Hagakure, Jiro and Ashido.

He followed the directions of the others to remove his targets and return them, then waited for word as the final winners trickled through the doors.

_ **”And THAT’S IT, ladies and gentlemen! One hundred people have passed the first phase of the test! On a less uplifting note, those who didn’t pass are asked to head for the exits. Anyone in need of medical attention will find tents with medical personnel outside.”** _

Izuku’s heart sank when the announcement came with no sign of his missing classmates. Tears of frustration and empathy pricked the backs of his eyes for a moment, before the door opened to reveal every last one of the final students marching through, looking victorious. The couple of tears that fell this time were ones of relief as Hitoshi fist bumped him and they all patted each other on the back.

“Oh! It’s Shiketsu,” Kirishima said with his mouth full of food that had been set out for them.

A group of students wearing the distinctive hat of Shiketsu’s uniform approached and spoke to Bakugou about one of their classmates. One of them was covered from head to toe in long, fine hair, with only an eye visible from behind it. The girl that had attacked Izuku was with them (fully clothed, this time) as was Inasa, the huge first year student from earlier. They apparently wanted to apologize for an encounter between one of their own and Bakugou, and said they’d like to build a good relationship with Yuuei. When they had said their peace, Todoroki stepped forward and called out to Inasa.

“You! The one with fur collar!”

Inasa stopped and his face underwent a transformation from open and friendly to cold and distant.

“Have I done something to offend you?” Todoroki asked.

“Huh.” Inasa said. “You may have changed a little from the first time we met, but not nearly enough, Endeavor’s son. You still have his eyes, and I still hate you both.”

With that, he turned away and rejoined his classmates, leaving Todoroki looking confused.

Izuku was about to say something to Shouto, but things began to happen.

Once the last of the passing examinees came through the door, they were directed to watch the large screen showing the arena they had just battled in. When the entire stadium was demolished with a series of explosions, Izuku and the others stared with wide eyes at the collapsed buildings, ruined forests and tumultuous landscape. He knew what was coming next, but somehow that still didn’t prepare him for the parade of elderly people, infants and children that marched out into the wreckage to play disaster victims. 

They began to insert themselves into the disaster zone and apply fake blood to their bodies.

“Ladies and gentlemen, there’s only one more phase to this test, and that’s proving your worth when it comes to rescue. You examinees will venture into the ruins as bystanders called upon to help.”

“Rescue,” Izuku murmured. 

“You won’t be acting as ordinary citizens in this scenario, but rather hypothetically have provisional licenses. You’ll be tested on how well you handle rescue situations. These victims you see are highly trained, professional rescuees! Please welcome the _Help Us Company_ or _H.U.C_ for short!” 

Izuku marveled that someone had seen a niche in the job market and acted upon it to provide budding heroes with practice. Hitoshi shook his head in wonder and murmured, “They went all out for this!”

“The H.U.C. members will be feigning injuries across the field, and your task will be to rescue them. You will all be scored on how well you perform these rescues, and those you earn enough points to pass the benchmark will receive their provisional licenses.”

Once they had been briefed, everyone had ten minutes to use the bathroom, grab a snack and rest. While Izuku was getting a drink, Kaminari approached him and asked, 

“Midoriya! What’s this I hear about you hanging out with some naked girl while the rest of us are fighting for our lives, dude?”

“What was that?” Hitoshi asked, eyebrows shooting up with surprise and interest.

“Damn, it Sero,” Izuku sighed.

“So, there really was a naked girl?” Hitoshi asked.

“Not just _any_ naked girl,” Kaminari said, pointing rudely at the girl in question. “That hottie from Shiketsu!”

The girl saw them all looking at her and waved with a friendly smile.

“Dude,” Hitoshi said, eyeing Izuku. “You got her naked after only knowing her an hour?”

Izuku’s face turned bright red and he began to stammer while Hitoshi laughed. 

“It wasn’t like that!” Izuku said defensively, “It had something to do with her quirk! She’s scary as hell!”

Todoroki sat nearby, looking at them all with a slight frown, but seemed to be lost in thought.

Suddenly there was a klaxon sounding, and a deep voice came over the loudspeakers.

**THERE HAS BEEN A LARGE SCALE TERRORIST ATTACK! THERE IS WIDESPREAD DESTRUCTION ALL OVER THE CITY AND BUILDINGS HAVE COLLAPSED! MANY PEOPLE ARE HURT!**

“That must be the scenario for this exercise, _kero_,” Asui said.

“It’s starting!” Yaoyorozu agreed.

_ **”WITH MOST ROADS OUT OF COMMISSION, RESCUE CREWS AND RELIEF SQUADS ARE DELAYED. UNTIL THEY ARRIVE, IT’S UP TO THE HEROES ON THE SCENE TO TAKE CHARGE AND RESCUE CIVILIANS!** _

Much like before, the walls and ceiling of the ante-room folded away around them with a rumble of gears.

_ **”START! SAVE EVERY LIFE YOU CAN!”** _

Every examinee bolted forward, springing into action. Ketsubutsu took the lead in setting up a triage and evacuation station, and Shiketsu cleared an area for helicopters to be able to land. Class 1-A banded together (except for Bakugou, Kirishima and Kaminari) as they ran.

“Everyone stay together!” Iida shouted as they ran. "Let’s head for the nearest metropolitan area, where casualties will be most numerous!”

Everyone agreed and headed in that direction. Izuku let a little more of One For All trickle through his system to give him extra strength and stamina. They hadn’t been told how they would be scored, so it was up to them to remember their training and do everything they way they’d learned.

“I’m going to go help shore up unstable structures with my ice,” Todoroki told them, separating from the group. 

“I can help clear away the larger rubble,” Uraraka said, also moving off to another direction.

“There’s someone down over there,” Hitoshi called, pointing to a body in the street, covered in red.

He jogged over with Shouji to check it out, while the others went toward the sound of a voice crying out for help. Izuku paused to make sure the body didn’t need quick evacuation.

“It’s a mannequin,” Hitoshi called back. “No pulse!”

“They must have added dead bodies into the scene,” Shouji surmised.

“Leave it,” Izuku called back, though it pained him to do so. “If they’re beyond saving, leave it to the recovery crews. There are living people that need us.”

The other two nodded and they ran to catch up with the rest of their team. Izuku, being faster, skidded to a stop at the head of the back, looking down into a collapsed building to see a child calling for help.

“Please! Someone help!” he cried pitifully. “My grandpa is still inside! He got trapped under everything! _WAAAAH_!”

“This looks bad,” Izuku said to Iida. “We should…”

“_This looks bad?_” the kid suddenly said, breaking character and scolding Izuku. “_That’s_ what you’re going to say to a distraught child who’s bleeding from the head and scared out of their mind? You’re losing points for that!”

_’Shit! The H.U.C. people must be the ones assessing us!’_ Izuku thought wildly as he was reprimanded. _’Even worse, he’s absolutely right, I screwed up!’_

“The first thing you should have done is check to see if I can walk! Then, there’s my irregular breathing and the blood coming from my head! A license holder would know that assessing a victim comes first! You’re totally unprepared for this! Take a look around! Heroes have to act as police and fire brigade and all other sorts of things until other professional help arrives. First and foremost, we’re scared and in pain, and the first thing you say is, ‘_This looks bad_’? That’s not good at all.”

Izuku mentally berated himself for forgetting his training and turned on a bright smile. “We’re here now, and everything is going to be fine.”

After that, the ‘child’ went back into character mode and began behaving as a frightened child would. They got it right the second time, assessing him and comforting him with vague words that promised nothing other than that they would do everything they could to help his grandfather.

Izuku carried him to the triage area while the rest of the group went ahead.

Just as he was giving a report on the child’s condition to one of the examinees acting as a triage medic, there was a loud explosion that had all heads turning. 

“Another terrorist attack?” Izuku asked aloud, “Or part of the aftermath?”

“Either way, it’s part of the test,” the other examinee said.

_ **”THE VILLAINS HAVE SHOWN UP, AND THEY’RE ON THE MOVE! HERO CANDIDATES ON THE SCENE WILL NEED TO SUPPRESS THE VILLAIN INCURSION WHILE CONTINUING RESCUE OPERATIONS!”** _

Several men in black bodysuits came through the blasted hole in the wall, and in the midst of them all was Gang Orca, looking menacing. “What’s your move now, heroes?” he shouted as he looked around.

Activity all over the field paused, and then kicked into high gear.

Shindo stepped past Deku and said, “I’ll send tremors their way at one second intervals. That should keep them off balance. I won’t let them get any further!”

Trusting the older student to handle that portion of the crisis, Izuku helped the first aid and triage students evacuate the wounded to a spot further away from the villains. He deemed it more important to prioritize the safety of the civilians over fighting, for the moment.

He could hear the sounds of shouting and see flames swirling as he carefully transported those who couldn’t walk, but it wasn’t until he turned to really look that he saw a disastrous interaction between Shouto’s flames and Inasa’s wind. Flames were blown off course and headed straight for Shindo, who had been knocked down and immobilized by Gang Orca. 

Igniting One For All to the highest percentage his could manage, he managed to grab Shindo by his vest and haul him out of harm's way a split second before the flames were able to engulf him. 

“You two watch what the hell you’re doing!” he shouted back at them.

Izuku could see that Shouto appeared to have taken a hit by something gray and goopy; possibly glue or cement. It was rapidly hardening around his shoulder. Izuku had to trust that Shouto could handle himself for the moment; he needed to get Shindo out Gang Orca’s reach.

“Oh no! They’ve broken through!” one of the triage students cried out. Izuku set Shindo down and turned to see the black-clad men acting as terrorists rushing toward them with strange weapons in their hands. It would be up to Izuku to hold the line.

“I’ll stop the--”

“Get back!” Shindo said, placing his hands against the ground. A sudden earthquake churned the earth between the wounded being evacuated and the advancing villains. 

“Shindo! I thought you were paralyzed by Orca’s ultrasonic waves!” Izuku said in amazement.

“I was. My arms are still kinda numb, but my brain is used to being scrambled a bit by vibrations; it doesn't matter if they’re sound waves or whatever. More importantly, _what the hell were those two doing? THEY ALMOST KILLED ME!”_

Izuku thought that Shindo was still a bit unstable, probably from the hits he’d taken and overuse of his quirk; but he wasn’t wrong about Shouto and Inasa. Something had happened between them.

“I’ve tripped them up, so you go shut them down for good,” Shindo told Izuku. Then he called to the evacuation team, “Split up and get everyone to safety!”

Izuku didn’t need to be told twice. Green lightning crackled around his form as he sprinted back toward Gang Orca. As he got closer, he could see a fire tornado encircle Gang Orca and his men stopped to turn back and help him. That moment of distraction was all Izuku needed. While managing to take in the sight of Shouto on the ground, covered in ice, but using his flames, and Inasa similarly incapacitated but still using his wind, Izuku attacked. The henchmen were easy to take down while they were distracted, and a moment later, Ojiro appeared to help, using his tail as a melee weapon while he reported that the disaster victims were safe and backup was on the way.

Soon students from different schools were on the scene, joining the fight. Asui’s new camouflage move gave her a tremendous element of surprise as she took several men out. A student from another school turned some into living statues and another captured them with arms that made nets. The Shiketsu student that was covered in hair finally appeared and used his quirk to finish cleaning up the henchmen.

“Is that it?” one of the students asked, alert for more threats.

“Don’t let up, yet!” Tokoyami warned. 

The fire tornado was beginning to lose strength, and Gang Orca could be seen through the weakening flames.

“A red-hot prison of fiery wind! Not a bad idea! Too bad you didn’t think of that first, when you were at full strength! Most villains would probably have surrendered by now and begged for mercy,” the huge man told them, sounding impressed. “However, that ain’t gonna happen. From the moment you finally got your act together, I was already planning my next move.”

He stepped through the flames, pouring a bottle of water over his head to keep his skin moist. He threw back his head and let off enormous ultrasonic wave that had everyone wincing.

“_WELL? WHAT NOW?_” he bellowed at Shouto and Inasa.

It was clear that they had given every ounce they had. Izuku didn’t hesitate to leap toward the mammoth figure looming over his friend. “Get away from them!”

_ **BZZZZZZZT!** _

_ **”Ahem! THE FINAL TWO H.U.C. MEMBERS ON THE FIELD HAVE BEEN RESCUED FROM IMPENDING DANGER! THEREFORE, I DECLARE THIS EXAM TO BE OVER! Those of you with injuries should head to the medical area; the rest of you get changed and standby for instructions while the results are tallied.”** _

_ **BZZZZZZZT!** _

Izuku lost focus at the announcement and let the extra One For All drain from his body, losing momentum. He landed a few feet away from Gang Orca, in between Shouto and Inasa who were still conscious, but laying drained and gasping on the ground.

“It’s over?” Izuku asked quietly, still on an adrenaline rush.

He walked over to Shouto, first and helped him to stand, pulling his friend’s arm over his shoulder to lend support. Then he moved a couple of meters to Inasa and easily hefted the larger boy to his feet as well. From there, Inasa’s classmates rushed forward to take him, leaving Izuku to manage Shouto and get him to the medics. 

“How injured are you?” Izuku asked him gently as they slowly made their way toward the building. “Do you need me to carry you?”

“Mostly just exhausted,” Shouto mumbled. “I’ll walk.”

Though he said so, he leaned heavily on Izuku the rest of the way. Izuku dropped him off with the first aid team, who then shooed him away. He went and got changed back into his school uniform, then let Yaoyorozu fuss over his few scratches with bandaids , since she still seemed to be jittery and in need of something to do. Hitoshi stood nearby with a few bandaids of his own, holding what looked like several packages of bread and onigiri.

Once she had placed the last bandaid on Izuku’s hand, Hitoshi shoved the food at her and said, “You need to replace what you used up, right?”

“Oh! Yes! Thank you, Shinsou-kun!” 

She smiled at him gratefully, and Izuku was amused to see his friend blush slightly. Did someone have a crush of their own? He’d have to keep an eye on that.

Shouto reappeared in his uniform a few minutes later looking sullen. He didn’t meet anyone’s eyes as Mera appeared and took the podium.

_ **”It’s been a long battle, boys and girls, and it’s time for your results. Before that, though, let me explain the scoring system. We, of the Heroes Public Safety Commision along with the members of H.U.C. were deducting points on a two issues as we watched you perform. Mostly, we judged you based on your ability to act flawlessly in a crisis. Each student began with a set one hundred points. Anyone whose score fell below fifty points failed the test. Anyway, those of you who passed will find your names posted here, in alphabetical order. Keep in mind the criteria for passing and have a look.”** _

“Look at all the names!” someone exclaimed excitedly as the screen came up.

“Yes!” Uraraka hissed with delight, pumping her fist. “I made it!”

Similar exclamations were heard as students found their names. Izuku’s heart raced as he searched for his own. When he found it, he let out the breath he’d been holding and grinned. A score of 88 percent wasn’t bad at all!

Other friends were comparing scores and checking for each other’s names, and it was then that Izuku realized that Shouto’s name wasn’t on the board. His heart gave one giant _THUMP_ in his chest when he realized that his friend hadn’t passed, then it picked up speed as he looked around for him. He was standing at the edge of the crowd, wearing a closed off expression, and Izuku’s heart broke for him a little.

“Shouto’s failure was very unexpected,” Iida said quietly, seeing where Izuku’s gaze was resting. “Bakugou also failed to meet the requirement.”

Helpers from the commission came out and handed out score sheets for everyone, so they could see where they lost points and why. Izuku and Tenya compared scores, and agreed that it was good to know their weakest points so that they could improve.

Izuku hadn’t even considered the idea that both Bakugou and Todoroki, who were arguably the strongest competitors in the class, might fail. “It must have been Bakugou’s charming personality that did him in,” he said wryly. “What will happen to them, now? Do they just wait until next year and try again?”

Izuku couldn’t imagine that Endeavor would take this well. He was grateful that they now lived in the dorms, and Shouto would not be subjected to more punishment in the guise of ‘training’.

As if in answer to Izuku’s question, Mera informed those that didn’t pass that they would be given another chance to take the test in three months, after a supplementary course completion to address the issues that prompted their failure this time. While that was certainly something of a relief, both Bakugou and Shouto looked sullen as everyone was herded onto the bus that would take them back to Yuuei.

Izuku had planned to sit beside Shouto to offer his support, but Yaoyorozu beat him to the seat, so he settled beside Hitoshi, who was staring at his new license with awe.

“I’m glad I dyed my hair back to normal,” he said as he took out his phone to take a selfie with his license to send his folks.

“Y’call that normal?” Izuku teased. He leaned into the frame of the next picture for an impromptu commemorative photo. He also took out his phone and sent a picture of his license to Gran, who was surely waiting for the results. He was forced to send it by email, though, since Gran didn’t like cell phones. He would be sure to call him later, to tell him the news.

The mood was high on the ride home, despite the fact that everyone was tired from the rigorous exam. Aizawa even complimented them, saying they’d performed, “adequately,” but he also warned them that they had a long way to go.

Izuku’s elation over receiving his provisional hero license was dampened somewhat by the knowledge that Shouto had not received his. After returning to the dorms, Shouto had excused himself from the group and disappeared to his room. He hadn’t reappeared when it was time for their group to begin preparing dinner, and he seemed to avoid the celebratory atmosphere be skipping the meal, altogether. Once dinner was finished, Izuku made sure to set aside a plate for his friend, and also for Bakugou, who had stormed off somewhere as soon as the bus had returned them to the school after the exam.

He was hesitant to disturb Shouto, if he wanted to be alone, but at the same time he didn’t want him dealing with his disappointment on his own. After some internal deliberation (and gentle encouragement from Uraraka and Hitoshi), Izuku climbed the stairs to the fifth floor and knocked tentatively on his friend’s door. He was surprised when he heard a clank and a thunk - the sound of dumbells being put on the floor - before Shouto answered the door covered in sweat. He was dressed in gym shorts and a tank top that made Izuku’s mouth water for a moment before he remembered why he as there.

“Izuku?” Shouto looked genuinely surprised to see him standing there.

“Hey. You missed dinner,” Izuku said awkwardly. “I save you some, but I was a little worried.”

“I’m fine,” Shouto said. “I’ve just been working off some of my anger.”

“Is it helping?” Izuku wanted to know, taking in the set of weights, the sweat drenched clothes and the shortness of breath. It was a tactic he’d used himself, many times.

Shouto paused to consider the question. “No.”

“Want some company?” Izuku offered. “I could listen, if you want to talk about it, or distract you, if you don’t want to think about it.”

Shouto stepped back and held the door open wider in invitation. 

Izuku felt a surge of relief as he entered the room, that was as tidy as always. The problem with a tidy japanese-style room was that there wasn’t much in the way of seating, other than the legless chair at the desk. Izuku solved this problem by simply sitting on the floor and leaning his back against the folded futon next to the wall. Shouto joined him after grabbing a small towel to wipe his face on.

“Good work, earning your provisional license,” Shouto finally said, settling on the floor. “Sorry I worried you.”

Izuku waved that away, “Not important,” he said. “Do you want to talk about why you’re angry?”

“Well,” Shouto said with a slight scowl. “I’m mostly angry at myself.” He sighed after a moment. “Or I _was_. Obviously I’m to blame, but I’m also angry about being so easily baited by someone I don’t even know, based on an impression my father made just by being himself.”

“I didn’t catch all of what he said, but that Inasa seemed to really hate your father. It sounded like he was calling you ‘_Endeavor’s son_’ at one point,” Izuku said with a nod.

“Yes. Endeavor’s son. Apparently, he used to idolize my father, kind of like you do with All Might,” Shouto said, leaning his head backward so that he was talking to the ceiling. “Until he actually _met_ Endeavor in person and got a taste of how my father usually treats people who get in his way.”

Izuku winced in sympathy. He’d seen the man be dismissive and rude more than once during his internship, and knew how stinging his remarks could be. “Ouch. Still; it’s not fair to paint you with the same brush.”

“Except that it is,” Shouto said with a sigh, lifting his head again and looking at Izuku with a pained expression. “Apparently _I’m_ the reason Inasa chose not to attend Yuuei. At the test for recommendation students, I was completely stressed out, and when he tried to be friendly to me, I treated him exactly like my father had treated him before. He automatically assumed that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

“Oh dear,” Izuku said, all too easily picturing the guy Shouto had been back then lashing out in his anger and stress. “That’s...unfortunate.”

“You get it,” Shouto said, more of a statement than a question.

“Yeah,” Izuku agreed, “But that was a different you. You’ve changed so much in the last three months!”

“Have I? Just today, I flew off the handle so easily when he started in on me, and I lost focus completely,” Shouto said. “I’ve got to get stronger.”

“You have, and you _are_,” Izuku assured him in a heartfelt tone. “You went from the attitude of just wanting to be left alone and being better than everyone else, to being a good friend and a great hero.”

“You really believe that,” Shouto asked quietly, voice uncertain.

“I absolutely do,” Izuku said firmly, sitting upright to face him more fully. “You’re _my_ hero. You helped me through a huge panic attack, you came to my rescue with Stain. You saved me from that fire.”

“Izuku…” Shouto said, finally meeting his eyes. “You got burned in that fire because you were saving _me_.”

“Irrelevant,” Izuku said with a soft smile. “You amaze me every day. You have an incredible quirk, and you’re working your hardest to get stronger and learn more.”

“But I got derailed so easily with just a few words,” Shouto practically groaned scrubbing his face with his hands.

Izuku shook his head and reached out to tug Shouto’s hands away from his face, and leaned forward to make sure he had his attention. “Stop it,” he said quietly but firmly. “Everyone has moments like that. You had reason to be angry and stressed out, and you made a mistake, but it’s one that you can fix in more ways than one.”

Shoutos fingers curled around Izuku’s almost reflexively. “I don’t like falling behind.”

“Than don’t. Use the special classes to learn what you need to, then make it into a springboard to launch to ahead. A bow can only propel an arrow forward by being drawn back, right?” Izuku said, wanting to convey how much he believed it.

“You…” Shouto paused as if at a loss for what to say. “I…”

Izuku frowned slightly as the way Shouto seemed to be struggling with what to say.

“I like you,” Shouto finally said.

Izuku could feel the heat rising to his face, and was sure he must look like a tomato. He mentally repeated the mantra _he’s not talking about **that**_ as he stammered out. “I l-like you, too. You’re a great…”

“No...you don’t get it. I _like_ you,” Shouto said again, with feeling, fingers tightening around Izuku’s. “_Like_, like.”

Izuku thought he might explode at any moment, sure he must be dreaming. He wanted nothing more than to confess his feelings in return, but his insecurities chose that moment to make themselves known, so what came out instead was, “But… _why_?”

Shouto let out the breath he was holding in a _whoosh_ that tickled Izuku’s face, then he laughed.

Not the foreign, painful sounding laugh he’d practically choked on when Bakugou’s hair had exploded back into shape. Not the hysterical, frightened laughter from when they escaped from All For One and the League of Villains. This laugh was musical and sweet, and possibly the best thing Izuku had ever heard in his life.

“Because,” Shouto told him. “You’re you.”

“And that’s enough?” Izuku asked, afraid to believe.

“You’re better than enough, Izuku,” Shouto answered simply, leaning his head forward to rest his forehead against Izuku’s. “I hope telling you doesn’t ruin anything, but I just couldn’t…”

“Ruin? No!” Izuku said, quick to reassure him. “I like you, too. _Like_, like.”

“Really?” Shouto asked, almost with as much uncertainty in his voice as Izuku felt in his chest.

“Really. I think I’ve had a crush on you since the first day of school,” Izuku admitted. “I just didn’t think you would ever...you know… feel the same way.”

Izuku was trembling slightly, his hands sweating as he wondered awkwardly what he was supposed to do next. They were sitting so very close to each other, holding hands with their foreheads pressed together, and he hadn’t a clue if he was supposed _do_ something, or just go ahead and die of happiness on the spot.

He asked himself what Hitoshi would do, then instantly struck that idea from his mind. Hitoshi would definitely give him bad advice, just to see if Izuku would be dumb enough to follow it. He’d say something like, _’Ask him to marry you,_ or _’Pin him to the futon and kiss his brains out!_’ 

Shouto’s chuckle brought him back to the moment. “You’re muttering again,” he said with amusement. “But I don’t think I’d mind if you want to… kiss?” 

“It’s okay?” Izuku asked, now having an inner panic attack, because he’d never kissed anyone before. _’Oh gods, did I say the part of about pinning him to the futon out loud?!’_ he thought wildly. 

“I’m pretty sure it is,” Shouto said seriously. “Isn’t that what people who like each other do? I’ve never kissed anyone, so I don’t know how it’s supposed to really work, in practice.” 

“Don’t we just...put our lips together?” Izuku suggested. He’d seen movies and TV shows with kissing, of course. How hard could it be? 

“We can try starting there,” Shouto agreed. 

Izuku nodded and wiped damp hands on his pants as he shifted positions. The logistics weren’t that complicated, except that he seemed to have forgotten how to...human. He fumbled awkwardly before Shouto placed one warm hand and one cool on each of his shoulders, and leaned forward. Before Izuku had any more time to overthink the situation, Shouto was pressing his lips softly against his own, and all thought simply leaked from his brain, to be replaced by bliss. Their eyes fluttered closed, and the soft press became more firm and a little less timid. This wasn’t hard at all. Their arms found their way around each other in an embrace what was at once both natural and dream-like. 

They parted only far enough to regard each other silently for a moment and catch their breaths. 

“Okay?” Shouto asked quietly. 

“Better than okay,” Izuku said back, a grin spreading wide. “Again?” 

“Again.” Shouto agreed. 

They shared a few sweet minutes learning the taste of each other, until Izuku’s phone pinging multiple times interrupted the idyllic moment. 

“You should probably check on that,” Shouto murmured, slightly breathless. 

Izuku groaned and pulled his phone from his pocket to look at the screen, just as Shouto’s phone also pinged. 

_Uraraka: 7:23 PM We’re going to watch a movie downstairs if you want to come. _

__

__

Uraraka: 7:23 PM We’re making popcorn. 

Uraraka: 7:23 PM Sato made daifuku 

_ Uraraka: 7:24 PM Kirishima is eyeing the plates you set aside for Todoroki and Bakugou._

“Just send it all at once!” Izuku said as his phone pinged again and again. 

_Kirishima 7:24 PM If they’re not gonna eat, can I have one of these plates in the fridge?_

Izuku sighed and looked at Shouto regretfully. 

“Shinsou wants me to come join everyone for a movie and popcorn,” Shouto said, holding up his phone. 

“I got the same message from Uraraka. Plus, Kirishima might eat your dinner, if we don’t go down.” Izuku said, holding up his own phone. 

“I am kind of hungry, now,” Shouto admitted, getting to his feet and holding out a hand to help Izuku up. 

Izuku put his hand in Shouto’s and stood. 

“Thanks for making me feel better,” Shouto said, leaning in to steal one last kiss. 

Izuku was tempted to let Kirishima eat the food and make Shouto something else later, just for a chance to stay where they were, but knew it wouldn’t last. Their friends would eventually come looking for them. 

Same,” Izuku said with a shy smile. 

They headed for the stairs and emerged into a sea of bodies, most of them wearing pajamas, spread out all over the room with pillows and blankets. Huge bowls of popcorn and plates of daifuku sat on every surface, and there seemed to be a heated argument over which movie they would watch. 

“There you are!” Uraraka said when she spotted them exiting the stairwell. 

Hitoshi raised an eyebrow at them, but said nothing as he returned to a discussion he was having with Kaminari. 

“I’m gonna heat up dinner for Shouto,” Izuku told Uraraka when she tried to wave them over. 

At her nod, Izuku led the way to the kitchen, almost tripping over Hagakure one the way. They sat in the kitchen together, talking quietly while Shouto ate. 

Shouto told Izuku all about the first part of the test after they got seperated by Shindo’s earthquake, and his first encounter with Inasa, while Izuku sympathized. After, they joined the rest of the class, sitting on the floor in front of the couch where Uraraka sitting beside Tenya. 

The class had finally settled on a movie called _The Girl Who Leapt Through Time_, which neither Izuku nor Shouto had ever seen. They sat with their shoulders brushing, Shouto’s cool fingers entwined with Izuku’s warmer ones between them in the darkened room. Both found it hard to concentrate on the film at first, but soon got drawn into the story. By the time it was over, Uraraka was sniffling at the sad ending, and Tenya was offering her a handkerchief. 

Izuku picked up the bottle of water Shouji had handed him earlier and took a sip, then promptly spit it all over himself and anyone nearby when Ashido spotted their entwined hands and chose that moment to ask loudly, “Hey Midoriya and Todoroki! Are you guys going out, now?” 

Every head in the room turned in their direction, and Izuku’s face turned so red, it seemed in danger of catching fire. 

“I...I don’t…” he looked at Shouto, who seemed unfazed. “Are we?” 

“We didn’t really talk about it,” Shouto said. “What does that even really mean?” 

“It means you don’t want to date anyone else while you’re together,” Ashido said eagerly, always ready to support a romance. “Like… how would you feel if one of you kissed someone else?” 

Izuku ended up showering everyone with water again, this time from the water bottle he had accidentally crushed in his fist, causing the liquid to geyser out at the idea of Shouto kissing anyone else. 

“Smooth,” Hitoshi snorted.

“I can’t imagine wanting to kiss anyone else,” Todoroki said simply. 

Izuku nodded his head fervently. “Same.” 

“So you’ve kissed?” Uraraka asked excitedly. 

“I hardly think that’s any of our business,” Tenya said, trying to control the situation before it got out of hand. 

“Well, if you finally got together, it’s about damn time,” Kirishima said. “You two have been making eyes at each other for a couple of weeks now, whenever the other one wasn’t looking.” 

“Longer, in Zu’s case,” Hitoshi said, feeling safe, since he was out of reach of Izuku’s fist. 

“Well, as nice as all of that is,” Tenya interjected, “it’s nearly time for lights out. Everyone needs to pick up their things and go to their rooms!”

“Can’t we just sleep down here?” Ashido asked. “It’ll be like a slumber party!” 

“Highly inappropriate!” Tenya said, nixing the idea before it could take root. “We also have classes tomorrow, so it’s imperative that we all get proper rest!” 

“Boo!” Hagakure pouted, tossing a pillow at Iida’s face. 

Izuku looked to Shouto. “He’s right. I should also clean up the mess I just made. Want to meet up in the morning for a run?” 

“Is that what they’re calling it these days?” Kaminari teased from across the room. 

He yelped when he was suddenly smacked in the chest with a snowball from Shouto’s right hand, and the others laughed good-naturedly. 

“Sounds good,” Shouto nodded. “See you then.” 

“See you,” Izuku said, accepting the small towel that Tenya handed him from the kitchen.> 

They stared at each other for a moment longer before Hitoshi nudged Izuku to get his attention. Shouto said a quiet good night and disappeared up the stairs. 

“Way to go!” Hitoshi said, ruffling Izuku’s hair. “Congrats! I’m happy for you.” 

“It still feels unreal,” Izuku admitted as he began to wipe up the water. “I’m not sure what happens now.” 

“What do you mean?” Hitoshi asked, helping to straighten up the room as everyone vacated. 

“I mean, what happens now? Am I supposed to _do_ anything? Special, I mean?” Izuku said, trying to clarify, but not really finding the right words. 

“Well,” Hitoshi said, “You two are basically under campus lockdown, so you can’t really have real dates. That’s actually a pretty good question.” 

“Just because you can’t go on formal dates, doesn’t mean you can’t have informal ones,” Tenya offered from where he was sweeping up bits of popcorn. “You can still spend meaningful time together on campus. Perhaps a picnic, or stargazing?” 

Both Hitoshi and Izuku stared at Tenya with their mouths hanging open for a moment before Hitoshi grinned and patted him on the back. “That’s brilliant, Iida! He just has to be creative!” 

“Exactly. As long as they don’t break any rules, there isn’t any reason they shouldn’t be able to find ways to have fun.” Tenya nodded. 

“Wow, Tenya! That’s a great idea! Thank you!” Izuku said, feeling much better once he had something positive to plan out. 

“Glad to help,” Tenya said easily, “Just make sure that your newfound feelings for each other don’t make you lose focus on your studies and training.” 

“Yeah, you’re right, of course,” Izuku agreed. “That would definitely get us in trouble.” 

“As long as you understand,” Tenya said. Then, for some reason, he blushed lightly and added, “Er...and curfew time means you should be in _your own_ rooms by lights out.” 

Izuku gaped and Hitoshi let out a loud, “HA!” as he slapped Izuku on the back. “No bed hopping for you!” 

“We haven’t...we don’t...we…” izuku stammered, completely flustered. 

Hitoshi only laughed harder at his discomfit, and Tenya’s somewhat relieved expression. “If you wanna get laid, you’ll have to do it during daylight hours! Don’t worry, I’ll still lend you that book my parents got me!” 

“Shinsou-kun! I am _not_ condoning…” Tenya began. 

“Don’t bother,” Izuku told Tenya with a resigned sigh. “It’ll only encourage him. Don’t worry...I’ll be on my best behavior.” 

“Please do,” Tenya said with a grateful nod. “Now, off to bed with you both.” 

“Your _own_ bed,” Hitoshi told Izuku as they turned toward the stairs, elbowing Izuku in the ribs. 

Izuku let out a frustrated growl and shoved Hitoshi back. “Have I mentioned lately that I’m going to murder you, someday?” 

“Actually, it’s been a while,” Hitoshi said speculatively. “Maybe I’ve been going too easy on you.” 

Hitoshi was still teasing them when they went to their own rooms, where Izuku flopped on his bed face first and sighed. It had been an eventful day, to say the very least. In spite of getting his license, the elation he felt from that accomplishment dimmed in comparison to the taste of Shouto’s mouth. Both events seemed like they’d lead to exciting things in the future. 

There was a trilling noise near his head a split second before Gomi pounced on his hair, playfully attacking the curls. Izuku chuckled and reached up to scoop up the cat as he rolled over onto his back and regarded the feline face with a grin. 

“It’s been a good day, Gomi.” 

The cat began to purr loudly at the attention. When Izuku finally fell asleep while stroking Gomi’s soft fur, it was thinking of how perfectly Shouto’s mouth had fit against his own. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY! Now, I have a question for you all. I have planned for TodoDeku to be pretty tame, writing-wise. I don’t really plan to get too explicit, just the normal kissing and stuff. My question is this: Is there any interest in reading a short, more explicit content (smut) chapter that I would publish as a separate Ao3 fic, but would fit in with this story (but could stand alone)? It’s not something I plan on doing regularly - probably only a one-time deal, sort of a “thanks for your patience in getting these boys together)? Let me know in the comments!


	29. Moving Forward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Class 1-A learns about work study. Some of the Todoroki family's past comes to light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will TRY to post again before Christmas, but I can't make any promises! If I miss it, I hope that everyone who celebrates Christmas, Hanukkah, Solstice, Yule or any other holiday has a lovely time with people you love. If you do not celebrate anything, I hope you have a fantastic week full of nice things!

The morning after the exam, Izuku felt a little shy around Shouto as they met up for their morning run, but that passed quickly when Iida and Hitoshi both joined them. They shared a wry look between them at having company, but it was hard to feel upset when the company was their friends. They _had_ been warned not to go anywhere alone, and Tenya took that edict very seriously.

They sat together at breakfast, and Izuku couldn’t seem to settle the thumping of his heart each time his eyes met Shouto’s. It was a giddy feeling, and he wanted to savor it as long as it lasted.

“You’re smiling,” Shouto said with a small smile of his own as they carried their dishes to the sink.

“Because I’m happy,” Izuku told him, with an even brighter smile.

“Oh, God. Don’t tell me Icyhot and Deku are a _couple_,” Bakugou complained from his seat nearby. “It was gross enough just watching them, before.”

No one had time to comment before there was a very shrill scream from upstairs that could be heard through the open windows, and then Hitoshi shouting, “MIDORIYA IZUKU! I HATE YOU!”

Izuku broke out in a huge grin, and then stepped behind Shouto, ducking down behind him to hide as Hitoshi thundered down the stairs.

“Where is he?” Hitoshi demanded, holding a Very Creepy mannequin head by the hair and waving it around. 

The hair on the mannequin’s head was patchy and dyed an improbable shade of purple/black. Someone had taken black paint or marker to its eyes to make them completely dark and dripping down the cheeks.

“What the hell is that?” Kaminari asked, paused in his chewing to ask.

“THIS is the reason I’m going to kill Izuku!” Hitoshi growled.

Izuku had ducked down behind the counter to hide, holding a hand over his mouth to keep his laughter in. A bewildered Shouto kept a straight face when Hitoshi turned on him. “Your boyfriend put this in my closet! It fell on me when I opened the door!”

“I see,” Shouto said, not looking down at Izuku crouched beside him.

The others started to laugh, and Tokoyami took a step closer to Hitoshi and asked, “If it unnerves you...I would be happy to take it.”

This was too much for Izuku who let out a snort of laughter and fell on his butt laughing. Hitoshi rounded the counter and pointed menacingly. 

“YOU!” Izuku was not ashamed to admit that he used his quirk to escape, darting to the door where his backpack was waiting and slipping into his shoes. Surprisingly, Shouto was right behind him, bag slung over his arm as Izuku reached for the door.

“See you at school, Tosh!” Izuku called as he dashed out.

Once the door was closed, he stopped to tie his shoes while Shouto waited patiently. 

“Why a mannequin head?” Shouto asked when they began walking again.

“Oh! When we were in middle school, we trained by cleaning up Dagobah Beach. It had literally _tons_ of garbage piled everywhere, and the head was one of the things we found buried in the sand. It freaked him out then, and that was when it just had brown hair and eyes,” Izkuku explained. “He’s been teasing me a lot lately, so I decided it was a good time to resurrect it.”

“Aren’t you worried that he’ll retaliate?” Shouto asked, fingers brushing Izuku’s as they walked.

Izuku took his hand and squeezed his fingers briefly before letting go; a short affirmation that he wanted to touch, even though it was a bad idea to do so in public, for various reasons.

“Oh, I’m counting on it,” Izuku said cheerfully. “That’s part of the fun.”

Shouto smirked at that. “I’m a bit jealous of your friendship. I was never aloud to have friends.”

“Well, you can make up for it, now,” Izuku smiled. “And you can help me plot my next prank on Hitoshi.”

They reached the school before the others, and had to wait a few minutes for everyone else to arrive. Other classes were walking together to the training ground, which was set up for the opening ceremony of the new trimester. By the time Tenya was marching the class by, already in line by student number, Hitoshi looked as though he was over the worst of his anger, and everyone stood in their lines for Principal Nezu’s speech. 

For some reason, Nezu went on for ages about how he kept his fur in nice condition, with a segue into how important a good night’s sleep was. Just as they were becoming impatient with the length of his rambling talk, he switched topics.

“As you have all gotten used to dorm life here at Yuuei, I’d like you to keep in mind that, while we do our best here to keep everyone safe and monitor any and all threats, there are hidden dangers everywhere in the world. There have recently been direct threats made toward two of our first year students,.which means that any of you could unwittingly be used as a pawn. When away from campus or in speaking to anyone outside of Yuuei - even family members - please be careful not to divulge even the simplest details of any daily schedules you may be aware of. Those of you who leave campus to participate in work study assignments should exercise extra caution, as the most innocent of interactions could be used to obtain information about our school and our students.”

“Work study assignments?” Kirishima murmured quietly. “What’s that?”

“It’s the next step after internships,” Tenya said. “Once you receive your provisional license, you can actually begin working at trusted agencies as a sort of sidekick in training. Tensei told me about it.”

Nezu was still speaking about the importance of obeying curfews, and finally stepped down so that one of the counsellors could say a few words. That’s why it was a surprise when Hound Dog sensei took the stage and only managed to say a few words about curfew before being reduced to snarling and howling angrily behind his muzzle. Vlad King finally stepped forward to translate. 

“What Hound Dog is trying to say is that several second year students decided to break curfew last night to try to sneak off campus. Such behavior directly affects the entire school and cannot be tolerated. Any caught breaking the new dorm rules will be dealt with harshly.”

The students all looked at each other with various expressions of exasperation, speculation or concern as they were dismissed to go to class.

“Before you ask, the students who broke curfew have been put on house arrest by their supervising teacher, who will likely assign extra chores or assignments. They did not make it off campus before being caught, so the risk to anyone else was minimal, but let that be a warning to all of you. The campus is monitored at all times.” Aizawa’s voice was stern, but not angry sounding. “Today will be something of a rest day, since your exams were yesterday, and there will be no physical training beyond what you do on your own time.”

It was Asui who raised her hand and asked what many of them had been wondering about. 

“Sensei? Could you explain more about Work Study? Iida said it was like being a sidekick in training, and that you could do it after you got your provisional license. Does that mean we qualify?”

“Yes and no,” Aizawa said, rubbing his eyes briefly. “Work studies are like part time jobs with trusted hero agencies. Only a handful of agencies with strong records of successful partnership with Yuuei or other hero schools are permitted to host students. As such, the competition to gain placement is pretty fierce and the agencies can afford to be very selective about who they take on. Once they contract a student, they are responsible for giving them real world experience in the field and the student becomes something of a temporary employee who earns wages and has real responsibility within the agency. The training wheels from your internships have been removed, and students with provisional licenses are expected to be able to keep pace with the pros and follow orders.”

He gave them all a few moments to let that sink in.

“As you can imagine, with such fierce competition, most of you will not be able to find qualified places willing to take first year students into their employ. Those that do - if any - will have a very full schedule, as they will still be expected to keep up with their studies. Some allowances would be made in terms of excused absences and certain assignments as determined by your individual teachers. If your grades suffer, you would be forced to drop your position with the agency, which will reflect badly when you try to find placement again in the future.”

There was some murmuring around the class as they absorbed that information.

“How would we find the qualified agencies? Is there an application process?” Yaoyorozu asked.

“To be honest, this is where connections from your internships could come in handy, as they could recommend or introduce you to the right people. Many are scouted by agencies who have seen the Sports Festival and ask for them specifically. Though I am proud of each of you for your achievements so far, I would advise most of you not to expect to be able to find work study placement during this school year.”

Some of the students deflated a bit, and others were scribbling notes, but Izuku just sat muttering under his breath.

”It’s doubtful they’d let me leave campus at a time like this, even with the supervision of a hero, but I could still check and see if Endeavor’s agency would be willing to…

He stopped when an eraser smacked him in the head, and he looked up to see Aizawa and a few others waiting for him to notice that they were moving on with the lesson. Blushing and stuttering out an apology, he turned his attention back to where it belonged, not missing the fact that it was Bakugou who reached down and picked up the eraser that that hit him.

“I went over the results of your exams from yesterday and compiled a list of the areas you were lacking in, causing you to lose points. We’ll be going over each one, at least briefly, and discussing possible solutions to any problems that don’t have obvious solutions…” Aizawa began the lesson and Izuku was able to focus through it, even though he was itching to know more about work study.

Now that the League had basically declared war on him and Shouto, it was more important than ever that he push himself forward harder and faster.

At lunch, Shouto threw a damper on Izuku’s idea of asking the Endeavor’s agency for a place.

“Endeavor doesn’t take work study students until they’re in the last trimester of their third year,” Shouto said sympathetically. “And he’s extra irritable right now, because of the League and Tou--everything else.”

“I see,” Izuku said with a defeated sigh. “I seriously doubt Aizawa would have let me do it anyway, now that Shigaraki is personally after me.”

“Zu... “ Hitoshi said seriously. “I feel like you’re not taking the League’s threat seriously. Shigaraki thinks you killed the guy who sounds like he was basically like a father to him.”

“I’m aware,” Izuku said with a nod. “It’s not that I’m not taking it seriously, there’s just nothing I can really _do_ about it. I don’t think he’d accept an apology, you know? Besides, it wasn’t _us_ that set fire to the place.”

“He might not know that, if he wasn’t there,” Hitoshi pointed out. “His underlings probably blamed Todoroki for the fire, and you for breaking loose and keeping them from putting it out.”

“You’re probably right, but that still doesn’t solve anything. There’s nothing I can do, stuck here at school, and if I could work for an agency that’s actively searching for the League, then at least I could…”

“You’re not using yourself as bait!” both Hitoshi and Shouto said in unison.

Izuku didn’t stop speaking, though. “At least I could _help_. They lost their transportation when Kurogiri got arrested, so it’s not like they could just kidnap me again that way.”

“It’s a bad idea, Zu,” Hitoshi warned. 

“It’s a moot point, anyway,” Izuku said sullenly. “Since the chances of me being allowed to go, even if I found a spot, are slim to none.”

Shouto put the strawberry from the top of his cake slice on Izuku’s plate in a conciliatory gesture. “Remember what you told me yesterday when I said I didn’t like falling behind?” 

Izuku couldn't help the smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth at Shouto’s offering. “I remember.”

“We can work at getting stronger together, even stuck here at school,” he said. 

Izuku nodded, grateful for the comfort of his friends. He spent the rest of the day feeling a quiet determination building within him. 

In the afternoon after classes, he went to the weight room that students were allowed to use, while Shouto went to his therapy appointment. It wasn’t as crowded as he expected, so there wasn’t much of a wait for any of the equipment. He hopped on a treadmill and ran a mile for warm-up, then started for the free weights when a familiar voice caught his attention.

“Hey nerd, come and spot me!”

Bakugou was sitting on a weight bench with 40 kg weights on each side. Izuku detoured and went over to oblige, seeing it as simple training, and not really being friendly. If he thought about it, though, Bakugou had been rather tame since the short battle they’d had just before the provisional license exam. He’d expected a tantrum of some sort, at the very least.

“I thought you and Kirishima usually spotted for each other,” Izuku commented as he watched the blonde work through his reps. 

“We do, but he had something to do,” Bakugou said. “I didn’t feel like waitin’. Ever since yesterday--no--before that even, I haven’t been able to settle down.”

Izuku raised an eyebrow, surprised to find his former childhood friend so chatty. “Because the league tried to take you at camp?” he asked.

“Something like that,” he grunted in reply, keeping excellent form and smooth motions as he eased the barbell through the reps. “I feel like I’m always on edge. Is it the same for you?”

Izuku considered it before giving a little shrug. “Sort of. I mean, that’s the life of a hero, isn’t it? Someone’s bound to be out to get us at any given time. We just got a head start.”

“That’s one way of lookin’ at it, I guess.” 

Bakugou ended his first set of reps and Izuku moved the bar back onto the rack.

“Havin’ you win our fight so easily didn’t help,” Bakugou admitted, not making eye contact. “That was just bullshit, and I gotta get better.”

“You’d already _be_ better, if you could learn to control your temper,” Izuku said in a no-nonsense tone. “It’s your biggest stumbling block.”

“Tell me some shit I don’t already know,” Bakugou shot back, taking a swig from his water bottle before easing back onto the bench and grasping the bar.

“Have you seen a counsellor for anger management or anything?” Izuku asked, lifting the bar down for Bakugou to take.

“Not yet, but I will. They’re makin’ me as part of my supplementary training,” Bakugou grunted. 

“That’s good. I hope it helps,” Izuku said sincerely, no trace of sarcasm in his tone.

“It’d better,” Bakugou said darkly. “They better not be wastin’ my time with shit that won’t do me any good.”

“Just give it a fair chance,” Izuku advised. “Trust them to know what’ll help in the long run.”

Bakugou just grunted and finished the rest of his reps in silence.

Bakugou scowled when it was Izuku’s turn, and he watched as his rival added another ten kilograms to each side of the bar.

“You use your quirk when you lift?” Bakugou asked.

“Some,” izuku admitted. “There’s a percentage that’s always active, and never shuts off. I’m working on increasing that percentage, but it’s slow going.”

He took his place on the bench and started his own reps.

“You can amp it up when you want?”

“Within reason,” Izuku confirmed. “I can push my power up another fifteen to twenty percent or so without serious backlash, if I need to. Over time, I should be able to use that much constantly, and push it up higher.”

“So, I was right about you and your quirk,” Bakugou said quietly, almost to himself. “How long until you can use it like...until you can use it at full power?”

“Don’t know,” Izuku said, wondering if he should be adding more weight for the challenge. “It’s taken me five years to get to fifteen percent.”

“You have to do better than that,” Bakugou pointed out.

“Tell me some shit I don’t already know,” Izuku smirked, throwing Bakugou’s words back at him.

“Fuck you, I give great advice,” Bakugou smirked back without heat.

“Well,” Izuku said, replacing the bar on the rack, “you’re not wrong, anyway.”

They parted ways at that point, not needing each other’s help for the rest of their work outs. Kirisihima showed up a few minutes later and joined Bakugou, and Izuku observed that their friendship was pretty solid. It was a funny combination, since Kirishima was so nice and had a sunny personality in contrast to Bakugou’s constant irritation. He hoped that Bakugou’s sudden pensiveness was a sign of positive change.

Izuku found a sturdy punching bag designed for heavy hitters, and practiced his roundhouse kicks, noting that he needed to work more on his left leg, since it was less natural for him, being right-handed. When Shouto showed up, Izuku was somewhat surprised to find that more than an hour had passed since he’d started. 

“Good session?” Izuku asked, noting that Shouto was dressed to work out.

“She gave me a lot to think about,” he said, going to the pull-up bar and beginning to lift himself. 

Izuku joined him, simply to be near him and hear what he had to say. “Yeah, mine does that, too. Sometimes it’s good, but mostly it’s uncomfortable, because it’s stuff I’ve been avoiding.”

“Yeah,” Shouto agreed. 

When Shouto was silent for a while, Izuku just let him work through his thoughts and his reps in peace; aquiet, supportive presence. When Shouto dropped from the bar and moved to the side to begin sit ups, Izuku followed, slipping his feet under the rail near the floor to hold them in place. 

After about fifty sit ups, Shouto finally spoke again. “She thinks I should talk to my dad. About Touya.”

Izuku nodded. “You might get some answers that way.”

“But will they be the answers I want?” Shouto asked quietly.

Izuku didn’t have an answer for that. “I could be there with you, if you decide you want to ask him about it.”

“Thanks,” Shouto said, stopping his sit ups and making eye contact. “Let me think about, okay?”

“I’ll be here whenever you need,” Izuku said simply.

Shouto seemed to relax a little after that, and they finished their workout just in time to wash up before dinner. The tables were a little more quiet than usual, with a handful of students moping.

“I called Fourth Kind right after classes, and his agency doesn’t take work study students,” Kirishima said glumly.

“Gunhead has too much going on right now to take anyone else,” Uraraka sighed.

“My internship was too far away _kero_,” Tsuyu said, “I’d never be able to commute, even if Selkie would take me.”

Others had similar luck, and still others said their parents had forbidden them to take on a work study in their first year, especially with the League of Villains so active.

“I won’t even bother calling Gran to see if he knows anyone that would take me on,” Izuku said as he ate. “He’d never agree to it, now that Shigaraki’s after me.”

Bakugou was the most sullen of all of them, but surprisingly kept quiet, other than his glare and aggressive eating style that evening.

After dinner, Izuku joined Shouto in his room to work on homework, and if they also spent a little time (before Hitoshi intruded) kissing, then no one but them needed to know that.

The following morning found Shouto looking more tired than usual as he helped Izuku, Tenya and Ashido prepare breakfast. His friends looked at him with concern, but he just said he was tired and needed coffee. Izuku silently made him some, though he was concerned, since Shouto usually drank green tea; coffee was a huge departure from the norm.

“Did something happen after I left last night?” Izuku murmured, setting the mug in front of his boyfriend, who had been tasked with cutting up the vegetables for the salad.

“I got a text from my father,” he said, giving Izuku a grateful look as he picked up the coffee and sipped at it carefully. “He’s going to be coming here this evening to… talk. About family stuff.”

“Ah,” Izuku nodded, seeing why that would have thrown Shouto off of his usual routine. “I’ll be there, if you still want me to, or I can just be there after.”

“Thanks,” Shouto said, reaching out to cover Izuku’s hand, which was resting on the counter as they talked. “I do want you there, but I’m not sure if my father will allow it.”

“That’s true. I guess we can just take it as it comes. Is Aizawa or Nezu going to be there, too? I don’t like the idea of you having to deal with him on your own.”

“I’ve been dealing with him alone all my life,” Shouto said dryly. 

“That was before you had a support system to help you. You don’t have to do that anymore.”

Shouto just took a sip of the coffee and nodded. 

Izuku left it at that, but made a mental note to have Aizawa on standby when Endeavor showed up.

In class, they had visitors that put even Endeavor out of his mind, as Izuku looked curiously at the students that Aizawa introduced as _The Big Three_: the top students in the school. Togata Mirio, Amajiki Tamaki and Hado Nejire were third years who had come to explain the difference between their internships and the Work Study program.

Izuku looked to Hitoshi to see if he recognized the three from their extensive research into past Sports Festivals, and Hitoshi nodded at him slowly, obviously thinking back. They had spent countless hours going over past participants and devising strategies for how they would have tried to beat each of them. It was obvious how much they all must have grown since their first year, since Togata in particular had literally lost his shirt (along with the rest of his clothes) in last year’s contest, and hadn’t advanced past the second round.

Izuku felt like they were an odd trio. Just the act of introducing himself seemed a herculean task for Amajiki senpai; at first, they all thought he was glaring at them, but a moment later they found that he had stage fright, and was trying to picture them all as potatoes… and failing. Eventually he turned his back to them and stood facing the wall, saying he wanted to leave.

Hado was also strange, flitting around the room and asking intrusive questions but not waiting to hear the answers before going to the next person. Why did Shouji wear the mask? Did Ashido’s horns grow back if broken? How’d Todoroki’s eye get burned? Was Asui a tree frog or more like a toad? (Though Izuku knew he couldn’t be the only one wishing she’d given Shouji time to answer).

Aizawa seemed to be getting exasperated by the illogical approach the visitors were using in what was supposed to be a simple presentation. 

“Don’t worry, Sensei,” Togata finally stepped forward to take control. “I’ve got this; I’m the main act, anyway!”

The students were murmuring to each other about how odd all of the Big Three seemed, not sure what to think. Even Izuku was having trouble picturing how someone like Togata, who had ended up naked on the sports field just a year ago could have climbed to be the best of the best. 

“I’m looking around at all of you, and I’m seeing a lot of faces that say, “Who cares what this guy has to say? These people are here to talk about a work study that we’re not even required to do. It doesn’t make sense, right?” Togata said, finally looking somewhat serious.

A couple of kids nodded cautiously.

“Most of you got your provisional licenses as first years, so you must be real go-getters! Since our talk here isn’t going well, why don’t we take this to the gym? I can show you with actions instead of words! YEAH! You can all take me on at once!”

Again, everyone looked at him as if he was crazy.

“Is that okay, sensei?” Togata asked Aizawa. “It seems _rational_ that they get to feel the full weight of the differences in our experience, don’t you?”

“Do what you want,” Aizawa said, sounding bored.

And that was how the class ended up in the gym, with all of the long range fighter disabled in under five minutes. Togata had moved like a teleporter, taking them out with ease without any of them even seeing him coming. 

“The techniques that Togata learned during his work study with the Nighteye Agency are no joke. This is a great opportunity, so pay attention and learn this lesson well by getting it beaten into you,” Aizawa called to them as they lie groaning on the ground. “Because Togata Mirio, as far as I know, is the closest to being the top hero, even including the pros!”

“Thanks for the warning,” Hitoshi muttered sourly as he pushed himself to a sitting position.

“Would have have been able to beat him if you’d known?” Aizawa asked him with a trace of humor in his tone.

Hitoshi just sighed.

“He took them all out in the blink of an eye!” Shouto said with admiration from the sidelines. “It’s easy to see why he’s at the top!”

“Not gonna give it a try, yourself?” Hitoshi asked him.

“I don’t have my provisional license yet,” Shouto said with a little head shake, though his expression said he didn’t feel like having his ass kicked today.

“Looks like just the melee fighters left,” Togata said easily, stretching a bit in preparation.

The close range fighters were eyeing him cautiously.

“What even just happened?” Uraraka asked incredulously.

“I have no freaking idea!” Kaminari said, “He can phase through stuff, or let stuff phase through him, but the teleportation on top of it is just too much! That dude is invincible!”

Izuku was moving into a ready stance, and began to mutter to himself. 

“_No...he’s not teleporting. This is some trick that has to do with his phasing. Either way, he’s a melee fighter, too. If we can find a counter, there’s got to be a way we can touch him. Since we don’t really know how his quirk works, we need to take a step back and work out a hypothesis and test it out…”_

“Good point, Midoriya!” Kirishima said from beside him. 

Further discussion was put on hold, because Togata suddenly sank into the ground. Izuku watched carefully, doing mental calculations and counting on his speed to help him out. A moment later, he spun to see that the third year was exactly where he’d predicted. He shot out of the way, but wasn’t quite as fast as he should have been to avoid what he heard Togata call his ‘_blinder touch eyeball crush’_ move. Not able to risk it, Izuku scrunched his eyes tight, and knew he’d lost. He took a jab to the solar plexus, and tried to counter, but was unable to connect due to his opponent’s phasing ability. Two more quick jabs had him on the ground. He wouldn’t like to see what that quirk could do if he rematerialized while his fist was inside another person.

While Tenya was turned away to check on Izuku, Togata took advantage of his distraction and took him out next. Soon, all of them were as down and out as the long range fighters had been only a couple of minutes before.

“Well, you get the idea,” Togata said cheerfully after taking out the last fighter and getting re-clothed.

In they end, they all ended up holding their guts and groaning. 

“Did you punch _everyone_ in the gut?” Kaminari asked plaintively.

“Do you guys think my quirk is strong?” Togata asked.

“Too strong!” Sero said fervently.

“You can warp _and_ phase? That’s too much! Are you some kind of hybrid, like Todoroki?” Ahsido demanded.

“_Hey!_” Shouto protested quietly. 

“Oh! Oh! Can I tell them what your quirk is? Can I?” Hado asked, waving her hand in the air and hopping up and down excitedly.

“Hado, this is Mirio’s time to stand in the spotlight!” Amajiki said quietly, still facing the wall.

“It’s all part of a single quirk called Permeation,” Togata told them, making Hado pout. “The warping thing is just another function of it.”

Izuku already had some ideas about how the quirk worked, but still wanted more details. His fingers itched to write all of this down, but he didn’t have his notebook handy.

“Is...is he taking _air notes?_” Uraraka murmured to Htioshi in some amusement.

“Probably,” Hitoshi answered with a smirk. “You get used to it.”

Izuku shot them both a small glare when he heard them. He lamented not having his phone handy so that he could record what their senpai was saying. 

As Togata explained the mechanics of his quirk, Izuku began to see where his guess about how it worked had taken a wrong turn, but not by too much. It was definitely a mammoth feat that Togata had managed to master it as much as he had.

“So, as you can all see, that’s why my clothes tend to slide off when I spring into action. The fine tuning and the speed at which I have to predict every move going on around me is tricky.” Togata seemed jubilant at the idea that he’d gotten his explanation out in such a comprehensive way and had gained everyone's attention. “I did try to keep all of my private bits covered, for the ladies’ sake.”

A few students chuckled at that, and the girls all blushed cutely.

“I bet I’d constantly screw it up, if I was rushed,” Kaminari said.

“I used to be slow, thinking I had to take my time, just to be safe. I’d wait until the last second and would end up in trouble and naked,” Togata told them unashamedly. He tapped his head a few times to emphasize. “But time was one thing I didn’t have if I wanted to climb to the top with my quirk! I have to predict, faster than my surroundings change! I had to have _foresight_ if I wanted to trick time itself!”

The word, _foresight_ triggered a memory in Izuku of a certain hospital stay, where he met Sir Nighteye-- the very hero that Togata was now doing his work study with. It was a brilliant choice of agencies to go with, to learn to use a quirk like his!

“Experience is the only way to get good at predicting! Experience fosters that kind of mental ability! Experience will teach you far more than words or classroom lessons ever could, which is why I had you fight me today!”

He’d definitely proven his point, at least! Izuku could only admire Togata, the longer he listened to him.

“During our work studies, we weren’t just guests, but genuine side kicks! We were treated like pros and expected to act like them. Let me tell you, it was _terrifying_!” Togata told them sincerely. “There were many life-or-death situations with no one but ourselves to count on! But scary or not, painful or not, it was the type of top-notch experience that you can’t get at a school, no matter how elite or well appointed it is.”

Izuku knew from personal experience that nothing he had learned at school could have prepared him for the things he’d encountered when fighting Stain, Muscular or Dabi. Learning from pros in the field would undoubtedly help him hone his instincts and gain better observational and decision making skills. Unfortunately, he seemed to be as far from that opportunity as ever, since the League of Villains had painted a target on his back.

“I turned my own work experience into power that’s allowing me to reach my goals!” Togata was obviously pumped up about it as he spoke. “That’s why, even if you’re scared, I whole-heartedly recommend it to you first years!”

Everyone applauded, impressed with his presentation and explanations, but Izuku felt let down. He was all hyped up for the opportunity to participate in the work study he wouldn’t be allowed to do. 

“Okay, time to head back,” Aizawa called.

Everyone bowed and thanked the Big Three. As they headed back to the main building, they talked about how true it was that their internships had felt more like they were guests, and not being allowed to do anything truly dangerous. Izuku listened, but knew his own experience had been atypical, since he’d ended up searching for (and ultimately fighting) Stain.

For the rest of the day Izuku stole moments to make notes about Togata and his quirk.

After dinner that night, Aizawa came out of his apartment down the hall and approached Shouto. “Are you ready? Your father called ahead and should be here in about ten minutes. We’ll be meeting in Nezu’s office.”

Izuku stood from his place on one of the couches at the same time as Shouto.

“I wasn’t aware you were invited, problem child,” Aizawa said blandly. “I don’t think this is a meeting you’ll just be allowed to sit in on.”

“I know,” Izuku said with a shrug. “I’m just walking over with him for moral support. I’ll wait outside like a good boy.”

Aizawa sighed and walked ahead of them with a shrug, as if he was giving up on trying to stop them. 

They walked in silence, and Izuku was very much aware of the tightness in Shouto’s frame as the stress added tension to his body. 

“You sure you’re going to be okay?” Izuku fretted quietly.

“I need answers,” Shouto said simply. “I don’t know anyone else who could give them to me besides my mother, and I don’t want to risk a setback in her treatment by asking.”

They reached the school, and Izuku was about to take a seat on the steps leading to the door, but Aizawa stopped him.

“Don’t forget that you’re a target right now,” he said. “Wait inside. You can sit in the library, for now.”

Izuku nodded. The library wasn’t all that far from the Principal’s office, so it would be a good place to stay, where Endeavor was unlikely to notice him. He put a hand on Shouto’s shoulder for a moment and hoped that he would understand that it was meant as a show of support.

Shouto nodded, and followed Aizawa away.

Izuku pulled out his phone and idled the time away reading news feeds and getting caught up on his favorite webcomics. Then he texted with Hitoshi for a while, then he chose a book from the shelves to leaf through. The meeting went on for far longer than Izuku expected, and by the time Shouto came to the library again, Izuku was half dozing at a table with his head pillowed on his arms.

“You okay?” was the first thing Izuku asked.

Shouto’s face was carefully blank at first, but then slowly changed to an expression of someone troubled. “I’m not sure. It was… a lot.”

Izuku stood and pocketed his phone, and walked out with Shouto and their teacher, who remained silent, as if he was mulling over something, as well. Throwing caution to the wind, Izuku took Shouto’s hand as they crossed the lawn towards the row of dormitories. Shouto squeezed his hand gently in gratitude, and quietly spoke.

“My parents thought that Touya was dead, but now that they’ve done a deeper investigation, it turns out that he isn’t. It seems like Dabi really is Touya.”

“But… your father didn’t lie to you about him dying?” Izuku asked gently.

“Not intentionally,” Shouto confirmed. “He really believed it was true.”

“You two can talk about it later,” Aizawa said without rancor. “It’s nearing curfew. Just make sure you aren’t overheard if you decide to talk about it.”

Shouto and Izuku both nodded.

Aizawa looked briefly at their linked hands and sighed. “Make sure you sleep in your own rooms.”

Izuku blushed a bit, but nodded again. “Of course.”

Tenya was waiting in the common area, reading a book, but everyone else seemed to have gone to their rooms, or were elsewhere.

“There’s hot water, if you’d like some tea,” Tenya said kindly, setting his book aside and getting to his feet..

He had no way of knowing what was really going on, but he was good at reading the atmosphere, and was aware that Shouto had left to have a meeting with his father about ‘family business.’

“That sounds really good,” Shouto said with a small smile.

“I’d be happy to make it,” Tenya said, moving to the kitchen.

Izuku and Shouto followed and sat on stools at the counter while they waited.

“I hope everything went alright with your father,” Tenya said as he set down the cups in front of them and picked one up for himself. “I know that things are strained between you.”

“That’s a very diplomatic way of saying it,” Shouto said with a partial smile tugging one corner of his mouth.

“I don’t want to intrude, but I also want you to know that you’re both dear friends. I support you both, and I’m here to listen any time you feel overwhelmed.” Tenya sounded a bit like he’d been rehearsing this speech for a while, but it was still heartfelt and appreciated.

“I’m sorry, Tenya,” Izuku said, realizing that his developing relationship with Shouto had basically made him neglect his other friendships. “We haven’t been leaving you out on purpose; there’s just been a lot of things we haven’t been allowed to talk about.”

“Yes,” Shouto agreed. “I haven’t been a very good friend, have I?”

“No, no! I wasn’t trying to imply that at all!” Tenya denied with a hand chop that had his tea perilously close to spilling. “I just wanted you to know that I’m here, should you need me.”

“Actually,” Shouto said, sipping his tea, “an outside perspective might not be a bad idea. Izuku’s bound to be biased, once he hears the whole story. This could take a while, though. Probably past lights out.”

“It’s important, though, and not something we’d want overheard,” Izuku supplied, knowing that Tenya could and would set aside the rules in times of need.

“Of course,” Tenya said. “Since we’re both class representatives, it’s only natural that we’d be there in a time of need for one of our classmates; even after lights out.”

Izuku smirked at that, but nodded. “Of course.”

They moved to one of the tables and sat together. Tenya brought out a plate of senbei that Sato had made, and set it within easy reach.

“I guess I should start with what happened when Izuku and I got taken by the League,” Shouto began. “They wanted him because All For One was interested in him, and they took me because my father is the number one hero and very rich. Their plan was just supposed to be to hold me for ransom. Whether they intended to let me go after they got their money is debatable, but that’s kind of beside the point now. You already know that they kept us drugged most of the time, but when I came to, the villain calling himself Dabi had some things to say to me.”

“Villains usually can't be trusted,” Tenya murmured.

“Yes, well, he knew some things about me. Not impossible for people outside of my family to find out, but it was all very personal to him. It seems that he has a huge grudge against my father, because… he’s my brother.”

Tenya choked on the senbei he’d been nibbling on, prompting Izuku to thump him on the back a few times until he could stop coughing.

“How?” Tenya asked incredulously.

“Good question,” Shouto said with a nod. “I did-- _do_ have another older brother. His name was Touya, and he had a powerful fire quirk. My father pushed him hard, training him (from the sound of it) a lot like he trained me. When _my_ manifested, my father turned his attention to starting my training. It was… brutal for me as a five year old. I had the perfect balance of my parents’ quirks and my father called me his little masterpiece. I balked at being taken into the dojo. I was suddenly cut off from my siblings, not allowed to attend my school anymore, and forced to work my body and my quirks to the point of exhaustion and illness. My mother tried to intervene when he started to hit me hard enough to make me vomit, expecting me to put up a fight and defend myself.”

“At five?” Tenya asked with wide eyes, expression disbelieving. “That’s monstrous!”

“That’s exactly what it was. He was obsessed with making me his heir, and started parading me around at hero’s events like a little trophy. He became angry easily when I cried or refused to listen to him, and bullied my mother, so she would stop interfering. She began to cry a lot, and that made me even more determined to defy my father.”

“What about Touya?” Tenya asked what Izuku had been wondering. “Did your father just forget about him?”

“Sort of,” Shouto confirmed. “He put Touya on the back burner, making him train alone or with one of the sidekicks from his agency,. He rarely trained him in person, once he had me to deal with. I didn’t make it easy, and for reasons only he knows, it didn’t occur to him to train us together.”

Izuku could feel his blood beginning to boil, his anger with Endeavor’s stupidity igniting a flame inside him.

“Touya noticed, of course. He was jealous of being cast aside for another child, who had a stronger, more impressive quirk. He started to be reckless in his training, trying to gain father’s attention and impress him. Mother tried to get father to lay off of me and concentrate more on Touya, who clearly wanted to train, but he just pushed her away.”

“Let me guess,” Izuku murmured. “Touya ended up pushing his quirk too far.”

“Got it one,” Shouto said sadly. “In an attempt to impress father, he tried to use his flames to mimic father’s appearance, with his flames on his chest and face and all.”

Both Tenya and Izuku visibly flinched at the obvious outcome.

“His quirk is called ‘_cremation_’. Blue flames that are much hotter, and he lost control. My mother’s genetics came into play, and he ended up burning himself. Where most people have some imperviousness to the effects of their own quirks, Touya’s level of tolerance for his flames was okay for shorter bursts, but sustained flame destroyed his skin tissue.”

Izuku could well remember the intense pain of the burns he sustained in his fight with Dabi, and felt empathy for the child the villain had once been.

“He was rushed to the hospital, of course,” Shouto said. “But the damage was done. He was put into a medically induced coma because of the pain, and quirk blockers, because of fire danger in the hospital with all of the flammable tanks of oxygen and stuff. He stayed like that for a couple of weeks while his body was treated as best as the doctors could manage with the extent of the damage. Specialists and healers were brought in, but it was pretty grim, I guess.”

Izuku’s tea was going cold as he pictured the horrifying scene being painted in words by his boyfriend.

“I was only five, so I didn’t really know what was happening. I could tell that Natsuo and Fuyumi were upset when I would see them at mealtimes, but I never saw them at other times, so I was kept in the dark,” Shouto explained. “I didn’t find out until just this evening how bad it had really been. Apparently Touya’s condition was a catalyst for my mother’s failing mental health, but at that age, I didn’t recognise that. It was then that my mother’s mind broke and she poured boiling water on me, because my left eye was so much like my father’s. She realized immediately what she’d done and tried to help, but it was too much. I was taken to the hospital, my mom was sent to a different hospital, and the entire family was in an upheaval.”

Tenya had tears in his eyes as he listened, shaking his head at the unbelievable circumstances that had gone toward shaping the person his friend was today.

“At the time, my father was the number four hero, still trying to catch up to All Might and trying to surpass him. My brother was in a coma, fighting for his life, I was in the hospital, with healers trying to save my eye, my mother was in a psychiatric ward for her breakdown, and Fuyumi and Natsuo were on the sidelines, watching their family fall apart.”

“I can’t even imagine what all of you went through,” Tenya said with a sniffle. 

“It was chaotic. The media wasn’t too bad at the time; the media was so focused on Endeavor’s kids suffering burns that none of them seemed to notice my mother was in the psych ward. They just thought she was lying low and protecting her family. There were rumors that Endeavor had caused both injuries, but nothing was ever really investigated. 

“Touya was allowed to come out of his coma, with skin grafts in place and wrapped up in compression bandages and put in intensive care. No one but Endeavor was allowed to visit, as Touya’s father. Children weren’t allowed at all because of the high risk of infection. Endeavor couldn’t really visit when he had three other kids who needed to be managed, plus his work as a hero, which he refused to give up. Touya didn’t really have anyone to talk to except an older kid in his ward, who had been burned in a house fire.”

“Your father didn’t take a leave of absence to care for his family?” Tenya asked incredulously.

“Not a long one,” Shouto confirmed. “Then it turned out that the kid that was also in Touya’s room when he was out of danger was a piece of work. He’d been abandoned by his own parents, and the fire he’d been burned in happened when he’d tried to make his own food in their abandoned home. He was warped, and I guess he was always telling Touya that the reason no one ever visited anymore was because he was ugly from the burns, and they were going to throw him away.”

“What an asshole,” Izuku exclaimed angrily. 

“Yes. He poisoned Touya’s mind with things that he’d already secretly feared; like being replaced by me as father’s favorite, and being damaged beyond loving. No one told Touya what had happened to mother or to me, so to him, she just chose not to come and visit him. She’d already abandoned him.”

“Oh, my God,” Izuku said, the tears pooling in his eyes at the thought of believing that your own mother had abandoned you.

“Nobody knew that this was happening, of course, because our shitty old man was too busy to visit his suffering child in the hospital. Eventually, Touya decided that he’d had enough. I guess one of the physical therapists had told him that he’d be moved out of the hospital soon. Touya didn’t know that it meant he was being moved to a physical rehab facility, and that other kid told him that they were going to send him to an orphanage, where he’d rot, because no one wanted to adopt some ugly burned kid. That kid got sent to an orphanage shortly after that, so that only cemented the idea in Touya’s mind.”

“How did you find all of this out, this long after the fact? Tenya wondered aloud.

“I’m getting there,” Shouto assured him. “My father brought some of Touya’s clothes and pajamas and things to the hospital in preparation for his move to the rehab, but Touya was asleep when he did it. When he woke up, and saw so much stuff, he was sure that he was being abandoned, and decided that he was going to run away, rather than live in an orphanage.”

“Of course he would,” Izuku sighed. 

“That much is what my father learned by talking to the kid had shared a room with Touya in the hospital. As you can imagine, it took some time to track him down, and he didn’t exactly grow up to be a model citizen. After that, the story got even more twisted.”

“It would have to, if they convinced your father than Touya had died,” Izuku said.

“The nurse who had been responsible for Touya when he ran away had been away from her post at the time, stealing from the drug cart. She panicked when she realized that he’d run away under her watch, and knew that she would be caught stealing meds from sick children if there was an investigation. She used her quirk, ‘_duplicate_’ to make a copy of Touya from some DNA he’d left behind on some bandages. She could only copy his body, though, not life. She doctored his chart to show that he’d been running a fever and had pulled out the IV that was delivering his medication, wrapped the dupe up in bandages and put the pajamas and everything on it, hooked it up of the machines and then called for help. He was pronounced dead, and I don’t know why they didn’t do an autopsy or whatever, but no one questioned it. They said an infection must have developed and that it was just too much for him to fight off.

The dupe was cremated as Touya, and everyone believed he was dead. PR kept his death pretty quiet, mostly because after the rumors that Endeavor had been the one that burned Touya in the first place, and they didn’t want to stir that up again. Mother had to be sedated and confined to bed when she heard the news. Natsuo started having huge tantrums and getting in fights. Fuyumi had night terrors for a while. Our family was pretty much in a shambles after that, and stayed that way until recently, when I started to see my mother again and mend our relationship. We never discussed Touya, though. I don’t know what it will do to her if she finds out.”

They sat in silence for a while, each processing everything they’d heard. It wasn’t until Izuku cleared his throat quietly and asked, “What will happen now?”

“That’s the million yen question,” Shouto said. “The reason my father came tonight is because Dabi is in police custody. Now all that’s left is to see if he can be questioned to learn the rest of the story.”

“In custody! I didn’t see anything on the news!” Tenya exclaimed.

“That’s because he was brought into the hospital unconscious. Turns out that Shigaraki had Dabi’s hand cut off, which is the body part they were talking about when they said they’d sent it to us. They knew it was his because of the scarring.”

“Wait, _what?_” Tenya asked incredulously.

“Shiragraki apparently cut off Dabi’s hand after the fire that killed All For One, or had someone else do it” Izuku explained. “He sort of mailed it to us via drone, along with his message about how he wants revenge on us now.”

“Apparently there aren’t a lot of qualified doctors that will treat wanted criminals without involving the authorities, so he didn’t get the best care for his wound. He tried cauterizing it, but it was too late for the infection that had set in. Whoever was treating him probably dumped him on the street when he got too sick, and one of the smaller agencies’ sidekicks found him and called it in.” 

Shouto stretched his arms over his head for a moment, and Izuku stood and went to stand behind him to knead the muscles in his neck and shoulders for a moment. This whole affair had Shouto very tense and he was carrying that tension in his muscles. Shouto let his arms drop and leaned his head forward in appreciation of the massage. 

“That’s amazing,” Shouto groaned softly.

Izuku smiled softly and dug into the knots he could feel under his fingers. “Now that you know about what happened to Touya… at least up until the time he ran away from the hospital…”

“I don’t know. He’s still out of it, and under police guard. Father went to the hospital, but he’s at a loss to know what to do, either. Dabi is a villain, but Touya was his son, and that son is suddenly back from the dead.”

“Well,” Tenya concluded. “There’s no easy answer, but I do know that you don’t need solve that problem tonight. Try to sleep, both of you. There will be time to think about what comes next, even if you take the time to take care of yourself.”

He stood and collected their cups and the plate and took them to the kitchen.

Shouto walked with Izuku to the second floor, where Izuku took advantage of the privacy to slide his arms around his boyfriend and give him a warm hug.

“You should ask to see Koizumi tomorrow,” Izuku said, speaking of Shouto’s therapist. “She might not have answers for you, but she might be able to help you see it from a different perspective.”

Shouto nodded, giving him a soft kiss goodnight before going to his own room.

None of them slept particularly well.


	30. Lessons Learned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An opportunity arises for Izuku - but does he want to accept it? Will he be allowed?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Over 10.000 hits? I am totally FLOORED, all! THANK YOU!

It was very much a surprise to Izuku when Aizawa asked him to stay after class the day after the Big Three demonstration. His teacher waited until all of the other students had left the room before shutting the door and having a seat at the desk in front of Izuku’s facing backward.

“Okay, problem child, we have an issue,” Aizawa said without preamble. 

“Did I do something wrong?” Izuku asked, wracking his brain for anything that might get him in trouble

“Did you?” Aizawa countered with a raised eyebrow.

“... No?” Izuku answered, aware that it was a trap, of sorts. 

“Then we can move on,” his teacher smirked. “I’ve had a request for you to participate in a work-study with Sir Nighteye’s agency.”

Ah. That could be a double edged sword. Izuku remembered meeting him years ago, when he’d come to the hospital to use his quirk to find out if any more injuries were likely to befall the boy in the near future. He also remembered Gran Torino telling him that Sir Nighteye might not accept Izuku so easily as the rightful heir of One For All.

“I thought I wasn’t going to be allowed to do work study because of the League,” Izuku said, trying to keep his voice neutral.

“And _I_ thought you’d be more excited to learn that someone asked for you specifically. Especially after how impressed you seemed with Togata Mirio, yesterday. Sir Nighteye is the one training him, as I’m sure you remember.”

Izuku nodded. “Yes, and… I would be excited if I thought that he wanted me on my own merit and was willing to teach me skills on the level he’s taught Togata-senpai.”

“You don’t trust him to do that?” Aizawa asked, sounding interested.

“I’m not sure I do,” Izuku said thoughtfully.

“Care to elaborate?”

“You know about how I got my quirk,” Izuku said. “And Sir Nighteye knows, too. As All Might’s sidekick for five years, he was pretty much the brains and All Might was the brawn.”

“That sounds about right,” Aizawa conceded. 

“So, when All Might gave me One For All, it wasn’t because he _chose_ me. He didn’t know anything about me; I was just the person who happened to be there, and he used me to preserve the power he needed to pass on, because there was no one else. If you’d been there, he’d have passed it to you. If it had been Sir Nighteye, he’d have given it to him.”

“That’s probably true,” Aizawa said, “but you’ve stepped up and done it justice, and made it your own.”

“Thanks,” Izuku said sincerely. “But I’m not sure that’s how Sir Nighteye would see it.”

“Does it matter what he thinks?” Aizawa wanted to know. “Maybe he just wants a hand in making sure you live up to the potential of what was given to you.”

“Maybe,” Izuku agreed. “But Gran told me a long time ago that he might actually try to talk me into giving it up, if Sir Nighteye found a _more suitable_ candidate to receive it.”

Aizawa sighed, absolutely understanding the problem immediately. From what he knew about Sir Nighteye, the man was proud, brilliant and very opinionated.

“You think he’s chosen Togata Mirio.” It wasn’t a question.

“You saw Togata. He’s practically a perfect specimen! He’s charismatic, he has amazing control over his amazing quirk, he’s even got blond hair and blue eyes like All Might, did. Sir Nighteye’s been training him, grooming him to be the number one hero. Think of how much _better_ he could be if One For All was added to that.” Izuku said, a tinge of panic in his voice. “Even _I_ think he’d be the perfect successor for it!”

“Izuku,” Aizawa said sharply.

Izuku had a sheen of tears over his eyes, and his hands were trembling slightly.

Aizawa reached out and put a hand on his student’s arm to help ground him. “Just because Togata might make a great successor, doesn’t mean that _you_ aren’t, too.”

“Huh?” Izuku wasn’t sure what he meant. His mind was full of doubt and his anxiety was inching closer and closer to the edge of spilling over into panic. 

“Togata Mirio is incredibly talented and a hard worker, no doubt about it. But. So. Are. You.” Aizawa made sure he kept eye contact, so that Izuku couldn't focus too much on the anxiety telling him to doubt his own worth. “Last year, Togata couldn’t even keep his clothes on during the Sports Festival, and didn’t even come close to landing a spot on the podium. In a single year, he’s worked hard and struggled to get to where he is now. By the time you have that type of training and experience under your belt, I expect you’ll be every bit as good as he is, if not better. The only real difference between the two of you is time, and you’re still only a first year.”

Izuku hadn’t thought of it that way. Could he really be that good in two years’ time? It seemed impossible.

“The question is whether you think Sir Nighteye will still train you properly, even when he finds out that you’re not going to give up One For All,” Aizawa reasoned. “And also whether he can prove his ability to keep you safe from any attempts the League might make you get to you.”

“I guess… I don’t know that answer to that.” Izuku said. “And I’m not sure he’s not convincing enough to make me consider doing what he wants, if he wants Togata to have One For All.”

“Then you shouldn’t go to him.” It was said in the plainest and firmest tone. “Because that quirk is _yours_ now, no matter what All Might intended. Sir Nighteye is a fool if he believes that he could let you cultivate the power and learn to use it and even enroll in Yuuei, then suddenly show up and try to convince you to give it up. If it was his plan to find a different vessel all along, then he should have made that clear when you were nine or ten, and taken a hand in raising you to understand that.”

“In a perfect world, yeah,” Izuku said. “But life isn’t fair like that, is it? And I was quirkless before, so if I ended up giving One For All away, would they let me continue with the hero course? Of course not. I just...I should probably talk to Gran about it, and see what he thinks.”

“Don’t do it over the phone,” Aizawa told him. “I’ll give him a call and see if he can come here to discuss it with you, where you won’t be overheard.”

Izuku nodded sullenly, already thinking ahead to all of the possibilities, most of which would or could never happen. “Anxiety really is just conspiracy theories about yourself, isn’t it?”

Aizawa cracked a smile, relieved to see his student joking and moving away from a panic attack. “That’s one way to look at it.”

“So, how soon before I need to give them an answer?” Izuku asked as he followed Aizawa’s lead and got to his feet.

“There’s no rush,” his teacher assured him. “I can let him know that you’re considering your options and will contact him when you’ve come to a decision.”

Izuku nodded, hoping that didn’t sound too presumptuous. On the off chance that it was a sincere offer for work study, that type of response might come off sounding arrogant.

Izuku went outside to find Shouto and Hitoshi waiting for him. All three walked toward the Dormitory together, Izuku scowling slightly.

“Everything okay?” Shouto asked.

“Yes and no,” Izuku said, pinching his bottom lip out of long ingrained habit. “I got an offer from an agency for a work study, but there are a lot of complications.”

“Like the one where we’re being targeted by Shigaraki?” Shouto said dryly.

“That’s definitely part of it,” Izuku agreed, hating having to be careful with his words. Shouto didn’t know the nature of his quirk, so he wasn’t able to voice his concerns about Nighteye. “Though there is sort of a way for them to keep me safe, there are also other factors that need to be considered. They’re going to call Gran and see if he can come here to Yuuei to talk about it, since I can’t really go home, and it’s not safe to talk about my possible future plans over the phone.”

“So, you might get to do a work study, after all?” Hitoshi asked. “I heard that the principal was pretty against letting first years do it at all, with the sudden spurt of villain activity lately.”

“I guess they’re willing to make exceptions,” Izuku shrugged. “With the competition of newly minted provisional licensees out there looking for placement, I doubt many other first years would be able to find anyone willing to take them.”

“Coming from anyone else, that might sound like bragging,” Hitoshi said with a smirk.

Izuku blushed a bit at that, and even Shouto cracked a smile. 

“It’s not bragging if it’s true,” Shouto said.

They made it back to the dorm in time to hear Bakugou shouting about something having to do with Kirishima.

“What’s going on? Kirishima is the one person he’s usually civil to,” Hitoshi asked as they shelved their shoes and donned slippers.

“Kirishima might be going to do a work study,” Yaoyorozu said from an armchair where she was reading. “Bakugou’s upset because others are ‘getting ahead of him’ while he’s being forced to go to remedial classes.”

“Ah,” all three of them said in unison. 

“Any idea who he’ll be going to?” Izuku asked.

“Fat Gum,” Jiro answered, not looking up from her own book. She was sitting across from Yaoyorozu, studying quirk usage laws.

“Fat Gum!” Izuku instantly lit up, looking to Hitoshi and Shouto with excitement. “His quirk is fat absorption! He has to eat massive amounts of food to keep his fat stores, which allow him to force objects to sink into his fat until he lets them out! He can also store kinetic energy and convert into strength for attacks, but it burns up his fat quickly and leaves him more vulnerable.”

Hitoshi and Shouto, well used to Izuku’s seeming endless supply of knowledge, nodded and gently herded him further into the room while he talked about battles he’d seen on the internet involving the hero. Kirishima came over to listen, since it was information he hadn’t known before.

“How did you catch his eye?” Izuku asked eagerly, simply happy that his friend had a chance to grow as a hero. “Sports Festival?”

“Nah...I mean, maybe? But that wasn’t it,” Kirishima said, glad to have someone who actually wanted to hear his news. “Right after the Big Three came and talked to us, I got the idea to catch one of them outside and ask them about how they got their placements. I found Amajiki senpai, and he said that he’d introduce me to Fat Gum, if I’d stop talking.”

Hitoshi laughed at that. “He is a timid one. He must really do a 180 when he’s doing hero work to get so far.”

“Right?” Kirishima agreed. “I did a little reading about Fat Gum, and it seems like he’s a really nice, popular guy in his district.”

“Good luck, then!” Izuku said with a bright smile. “Do your best, and he’ll have to see what a great asset you’d be to his team!”

“Thanks, man! I’m gonna go call my folks,” Kirishima said with a sharp-toothed grin of his own.

“They’re both so… bright,” Shouto said quietly.

Hitoshi slung a friendly arm around Shouto’s shoulders. “They do stand out,” he agreed. “Zu is my best friend, but can see how someone not used to him could take time to adjust.”

“Worth it,” Shouto said with a slight shrug.

“That’s what I wanted to hear!” Hitoshi said, mussing up Shouto’s hair before releasing him. “Let’s get an after school snack before tackling our math homework.”

They went to the kitchen and Hitoshi rummaged in the fridge for something to eat, then brought a glass of orange juice and an anpan for each of them. Hitoshi took a long drink from his glass before biting into his bread, and made quite a show of enjoying it. Shouto nibbled at his anpan, looking at Hitoshi somewhat suspiciously, but wasn’t fast enough to warn Izuku, who took a swig from his glass and gagged.

“What the hell is that?” he demanded, jumping up from his seat and sticking his head directly into the sink to drink from the faucet.

Shouto picked up the glass and sniffed. “Cheese.”

“No, that would’ve been too thick! That’s cheese _sauce_! I made it just for you! You love cheese!” Hitoshi said brightly.

He managed to flee just in time to dodge Midoriya, who vaulted the counter and made a lunge for Hitoshi. He was half laughing, half outraged as he gave chase into the common area.

Hitoshi was laughing madly as he jumped completely over the couch and managed to hide behind Iida, who had just walked into the room.

“Save me, Iida! Zu’s trying to kill me!” Hitoshi said, red in the face from laughter.

Iida managed to put out his arms in a barrier as Midoriya cleared the couch a moment later.

“I must insist that there be no bloodshed in the dormitory,” he said firmly. 

“So if I kill him without getting blood on anything, it’s okay?” Izuku asked reasonably. 

“Izuku…” Tenya said in a scolding tone.

“He made me think the drink he got me was orange juice, but it was _cheese sauce_, Tenya! CHEESE. SAUCE. COLD!” Izuku explained dramatically, knowing that Tenya drank orange juice to the exclusion of most other liquids because of his quirk.

Tenya’s nose scrunched up in disgust. “Okay. Go ahead, but no blood.”

He dropped his arms, and Hitoshi squawked and looked betrayed. “Iida! You remember the mannequin head? The pink hair? He deserved cold cheese sauce!”

Izuku jumped to the side, making a lunge for Hitoshi, who was quick to counter. Iida stepped quickly out of the way so he wouldn’t be stuck in the middle, forcing them to find some other barrier.

Hitoshi leaped over to the arm chairs where Yaoyorozu and Jiro were reading and put Jiro’s chair between himself and Izuku.

“I’ll kill you both,” Jiro said mildly, still not looking up from her book.

Both boys blinked and stopped their escapades to look at her in surprise.

“You okay, Jiro?” Hitoshi asked.

“I got a really terrible grade on my last test, and I just don’t know how anybody remembers all of this stuff,” she grumbled, finally looking up, but using one of her earlobes to mark the spot where she’d left off.

“Oh! Well… Zu’s great at this stuff. Zu! Go get your notes from Snipe’s class! And your last test...you aced that one, right?”

“Oh! Yeah! Sure! I’ve got some great mnemonics to help you remember important details. Gimme a minute!” Izuku said, putting his revenge on hold to help his classmate.

He retrieved his notebook from his bag, grinning at Shouto who was still calmly eating his snack while observing everyone’s antics. He gave his notes to Jiro, who was impressed with how neat and easy to understand they were.

I guess I should be getting to work on my own homework,” he said. “I’ll kill you later, Tosh.”

“Pfft. You can try,” Hitoshi said, going back to the table and sitting down again. 

Tenya was kindly disposing of the cheese sauce and washing the glass. “Today’s math looks especially tricky.”

“I’m good with math,” Shouto said quietly. “We could all do it together, if you want.”

Izuku smiled at him with an encouraging nod. It was a bit unusual for Shouto to initiate a request for time together with friends, and it was nice to see it happening. 

“Good idea,” Tenya said. “I’ll go get my things.

That was how, fifteen minutes later, half of the class was sitting in the dining area, filling four of the tables, getting tutored by Shouto and Yaoyorozu when they needed help. Kaminari and Ashido were especially excited to get the extra help, and were thrilled when their homework was actually done before the group responsible for the day’s cooking showed up to start dinner.

Toward the end of their impromptu study session, Uraraka and Asui came in looking jubilant. There was a round of amazed exclamations when they shared the news that Hado senpai would be introducing them to Ryuuku, where Hado was doing her own work study.

They were all packing up their things when Aizawa came into the room, looking around until he spotted Izuku.

“I reached Gran Torino. He’ll be coming by tonight to discuss what we talked about.”

Izuku nodded gratefully.

“And you,” Aizawa said, looking to Shouto. “There’s been some new information about what we discussed in the meeting yesterday. Come to my apartment after dinner, and I’ll fill you in.”

“Got it,” Shouto said, his eyes moving to meet Izuku’s.

“Let’s go put our stuff away,” Izuku told him, picking up his bag. “We can hang out until dinner.”

Aizawa gave them a knowing stare, but didn’t comment before disappearing down the hall to his apartment.

“He thinks we’re going to make out until dinner time,” Izuku said as they entered the stairwell.

“Aren’t we?” Shouto asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Maybe,” Izuku grinned. “Mostly I thought you might want to relax a bit. I can tell you didn’t sleep well last night, and you’re probably already stressed about whatever sensei is going to say after dinner.”

They went Izuku’s room, simply because it was closer, and there was more options for places to sit.

“Do you want to tell me about the complications with your possible work study?” Shouto asked, setting down his bag and going to sit on Izuku’s bed.

“Yes,” Izuku answered immediately, “But I’m not really allowed to talk about most of it because of… reasons. In a nutshell, Aizawa isn’t sure if Sir Nighteye’s agency is the best fit for me, and I kind of agree.”

Izuku sat next to Shouto and pulled his All Might plushie that he’d been sleeping with for years into his lap. His mother had won it for him at a festival game, and he’s always suspected that she’d used her quirk to help the bottles topple when she threw the ball. It was comforting to have it near him when he was feeling stressed.

“Why do you think it might be a bad fit?” Shouto asked, “If you’re allowed to tell me.”

Izuku chose his words carefully, leaning over to rest against Shouto. “Sir Nighteye was All Might’s sidekick when he died. It seems like a no brainer that someone like me with a power like All Might’s would jump at the chance to train under him, but…”

“You feel like he’d be comparing you to All Might?” Shouto guessed.

“Yeah,” Izuku agreed quietly. “There’s no comparison, really. I mean, All Might was larger than life! The Symbol of Peace! I’m just… me.”

Shouto put his arm around Izuku and rested a cool hand on his shoulder. “You don’t think being you is enough? I would have to say you’re wrong about that.”

Izuku looked over at Shouto with a small smile. “Thanks, but as a first year student, I’m totally insignificant in comparison.”

“Then don’t compare. All Might had to start somewhere too. He didn’t just come to Yuuei already at the top of his game. He had to take most of the same classes as us, and endure the same training; he didn’t become number one over night. You’re comparing the beginning of your hero academia with the number one hero at the peak of his career. That’s just silly.” Shouto explained.

Izuku was smiling by then, feeling better about that much, at least.

“I guess you’re right. I _have_ been comparing my progress to his, I guess. My main fear is that Sir Nighteye will do the same, and be disappointed by how unlike All Might I really am. Can he really teach me well and give me the experience I need if he’s always seeing how much like All Might I’m _not_?”

“Well, I don’t have an answer to that, of course, but he is a pro, and from what little I know, he seems pretty capable. Look at how far Togata senpai has come working under him.” Shouto said, moving his hand to draw lazy circles on Izuku’s back.

“That’s why I want to do it,” Izuku confessed. “I want that kind of opportunity-- to grow as a hero and master what I can of my quirk. That’s why I need to talk to Gran about it. He helped train All Might, and he knows Sir Nighteye much better than I do; plus he’s my guardian, so he will get the final say, one way or another.”

Izuku wrapped his arm around Shouto’s waist and gave him an appreciative squeeze, enjoying the closeness. 

“Whatever you decide, you’ll make the best of it, because that’s what you do. You’re resilient and determined. If this isn’t the right opportunity for you, then you know there will be another, because you have the kind of personality that attracts people’s attention.”

“Sometimes the wrong kind,” Izuku murmured with a weak chuckle.

“That’s hardly your fault.” Shouto bent his head and kissed the top of Izuku’s. 

Izuku, pleased that kisses were on offer, turned his face up hopefully. Shouto obliged with a soft brush of lips that made Izuku sigh.

“I’m sorry, I wanted to let you decompress a bit, and I ended up dumping all of this on you,” Izuku murmured, cuddling a bit closer.

“It seems like you’re always helping me,” Shouto pointed out, “listening to my family drama and cheering me up. I’m glad I can be the one to try to be there for you, for a change.”

“Are you going to get a chance to see Koizumi?” Izuku asked with concern.

“Tomorrow after classes,” Shouto confirmed. “I might need it more then, after hearing whatever Aizawa is going to tell me. I’m hoping that it can’t be too earth shattering, if it’s being relayed through my teacher, instead of my father coming here again.”

Izuku nodded and cuddled closer, as if he could hug the worry away.

A moment later, there was a cat on the balcony, peering in through the window.

“Gomi has been out exploring again,” Izuku said, hopping up to let his pet back inside. “I don’t know how he keeps getting out. Stompers pretty much lives in Hitoshi’s room, now.”

Gomi came trotting in, but had a companion with him; a very similar cat of the same age and size. 

“Tsume!” Izuku exclaimed, shutting the door to the balcony so they couldn't get out again. 

“Tsume?” Shouto asked.

Tsume quickly demonstrated why her name was essentially, ‘Claw’ by jumping in Shouto’s lap and proceeding to knead painfully at his leg with her nails out.

“She belongs to Aizawa,” Izuku explained. “She and Gomi are from the same litter.”

“Ah,” he answered, gently discouraging the needle like prodding, and stroking the new cat’s back. “There’s something so soothing about petting a cat.”

“Right?” Izuku said, scooping up Gomi and going back to sit beside Shouto. 

Gomi squirmed away and went to curl up at the foot of the bed, prompting Tsume to follow and do the same.

“Okay,” Izuku said. “Sorry about that. We were talking about…”

“Kissing,” Shouto said promptly. “You said we were going to make out until dinner.”

“Did I?” Izuku asked with an impish grin. “I have great ideas.”

“I have to agree,” Shouto said, shifting to pull his boyfriend closer.

By the time they went down to the dining area, Izuku’s hair was a little messier than usual, and Shouto looked very smug. They’d brought Tsume back to Aizawa before washing up and joining everyone for dinner.

After eating, Shouto went to talk to Aizawa. Izuku headed to the school accompanied by Present Mic, who chatted with him in English, making him practice while they walked. He left him at the door to Nezu’s office, which opened almost immediately, the principal smiling pleasantly (or as much as a mouse/bear/cat could).

“Midoriya-kun.” he said, “Please come in! Gran Torino is already here. I’ll be leaving the two of you to discuss whatever you need in private.”

With that, he exited the room and shut the door quietly behind him.

“Kid,” Gran greeted.

“”Hey, Gran,” Izuku smiled. “Why are you in your hero costume? I thought you were retired!”

“Can’t sit around doin’ nothing while the League of Villains is targeting my boy,” Gran said simply. “I’ve been working with Tsukauchi to try and keep tabs on ‘em, but they’ve been lying low, for now.”

Izuku felt a surge of affection, followed by a wave of concern. How worried must Gran really be to come out of retirement to watch over him?

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Izuku asked.

“It makes it harder to track ‘em,” Gran scowled. “But we’re not here to talk about what I’ve been doing. Aizawa told me that Sir Nighteye’s asked you to do a work study with his agency.”

“Yeah,” Izuku said. “I’m worried.”

“I can understand why,” he said, “and normally, I’d say that there’s no way in hell you should go, with the League after you, and Nighteye’s history with All Might.”

“Normally?” Izuku asked, “But not now?”

Gran sighed and rubbed his temples. 

“Aizawa told me about your concern that Sir Nighteye will try to make you give your quirk away to that Togata kid. I’m glad to see you were paying attention when I told you about him and why he might do that, but the point is kind of moot, now.”

“Moot? Why do you think that?” Izuku was confused; he was sure Gran would absolutely forbid any contact with Nighteye.

“The whole point of One for All being passed down was so that someone could eventually defeat One For All,” Gran said. “Technically, that happened; he’s dead. If One For All ended with you, it would have accomplished what it was needed for to begin with.”

“I guess I never thought of it that way,” Izuku said. “But I’m still surprised you’d be willing to let me go on work study.”

“That wasn’t an easy decision for me to come to,” Gran admitted. “My first instinct was to say no, but the faster you learn the skills and get the experience you need, the sooner you’ll be as safe as you can be, facing your enemies. Sir Nighteye is pretty much a genius, even if he can be abrasive. He can help you gain those skills.”

“So you don’t think he’ll ask me to give up my quirk?” Izuku asked.

“To be honest, he might try it. The thing about One For All is that it can’t be taken away from you. You have to willingly give it up. We both know that even if you felt guilty about it, you’d never be okay with giving it up, especially to someone who already has a quirk and is succeeding with it.” Gran said.

That much was true. Izuku couldn’t imagine a scenario where he’d willingly give his quirk away-- at least not to Mirio, who was already immensely powerful in his own right.

“I’m going to lay down some conditions, of course, but I think it’s too good of an opportunity for you to pass up,” Gran continued. “My number one priority is to keep you safe, after all.”

“That’s fair,” Izuku admitted, feeling a glimmer of hope. 

If the purpose of his quirk being passed on had already been fulfilled, than maybe Sir Nighteye really did just want to see him develop All Might’s legacy and do One For All justice. If not, he could always just thank Sir Nighteye and walk away.

“I’ll talk to Aizawa and Sir Nighteye about the conditions, and then you’ll have my permission to accept, as long as they agree to them,” Gran told him.

“What are the conditions, anyway?” Izuku asked curiously. He didn’t want to violate them and have everyone involved frustrated or angry.

“Mostly common sense things,” came the answer. “You’re not to be left unsupervised at any time during your shifts, you’ll need an escort to and from the agency, your grades can’t suffer, and if any of their cases involved you facing off with or even investigating Shigaraki, you’re getting pulled.”

Izuku nodded. It was restrictive but made sense, so he had no reason to complain. “Thanks, Gran.

“Don’t thank me yet, kid. You’re going to be working hard and getting your ass kicked both physically and mentally. This won’t be a walk in the park,” Gran warned him.

“I’ll work hard,” Izuku promised.

The meeting had been shorter and gone more smoothly than expected. When Izuku stepped out of the office, it was to find Aizawa leaning lazily against the wall chatting with Nezu in the hall.

“Thank you for letting us use your office,” Izuku said politely, bowing to Nezu.

Nezu waved it off with a smile. “No thanks necessary. I’m glad to provide you with a safe space to talk uninterrupted.”

“Let’s go, problem child,” Aizawa said, turning to lead the way back to the dorms.

Izuku waved to Gran and followed, eager to share his news with Hitoshi and Shouto, and curious and concerned about what Shouto might have learned about his brother.

“Is Shouto okay?” He asked Aizawa as they walked across the ground.

“You can ask him yourself in a few minutes,” Aizawa said flatly. “I’m sure he’s probably told you everything, but in case he’s held anything back, I’m not going to talk about it.”

“I wasn’t asking for details,” Izuku said, almost indignantly. “I just want to know if he’s upset or anything like that.”

“He doesn’t really show emotion all that much, but he looked fine,” Aizawa relented. 

Izuku nodded, satisfied that he didn’t have to rush, and maintained a steady pace back to the dorms. As they changed out their shoes for slippers, Aizawa said, “I’ll let you know about your work study details once I talk to your guardian and to Sir Nighteye.”

“How did you know that Gran said I should go?” Izuku asked.

Aizawa just stared at him for a moment, radiating disbelief. “It’s written all over your face, kid.”

Izuku wasn’t sure what that meant, exactly, but didn’t waste time on it. He wanted to find Shouto.

He took the stairs two at a time all the way to the fifth floor, but Shouto didn’t answer when he knocked. The door just down the hall opened and Sato stuck his head out and said, “Try the roof.” 

“Thanks!” Midoriya said running down the hall and back to the stairwell. It only took a few seconds to get to the roof door, and he burst out and looked around. 

Shouto was sitting on the low wall around the roof, looking back at him. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so noisy, I was just worried and wanted to see how you were doing. I could go, if you’d rather be alone,” Izuku said in a rush.

“No. Stay,” Shouto said, patting the wall beside him. “I want to hear what Gran Torino had to say about the work study offer.”

“Oh. Well, he said I could do it,” Izuku said, sitting close enough to Shouto to feel the coolness radiating off of his right side. It felt nice, with the heat of summer clinging to everything like a humid blanket. “There’s some conditions to keep me safe, but he thinks it’s too good of an opportunity to pass up, since I need to learn so much as quickly as possible, now that Shigaraki is targeting me. Us.”

Shouto sighed a little, and covered Izuku’s hand with his own. “That’s good. I’m just sorry that I let everyone down. I’m going to have to work extra hard, too, so I don’t get left behind.”

“I won’t let that happen. Remember, we’re going to work hard together, right?” Izuku said encouragingly.

“Right,” Shouto agreed, seeming to gain confidence from Izuku’s words.

“Do you want to talk about what Aizawa had to say?” Izuku asked cautiously. “Or do you still need time to process?”

“No. I mean, I _do_ need to process, but I think I could do that better if I tell you about it, and hear what you think,” Shouto said, giving Izuku’s hand a squeeze.

Izuku turned his hand so he could thread their fingers together and nodded. “Of course.”

“So, it seems like someone used their quirk on Dabi, and he doesn’t remember a lot of stuff. It’s not quite amnesia, but there are a lot of missing blocks of memory. He can’t remember working with the League of Villains, and I guess he seemed really confused when they tried to question him. That means he doesn’t remember you at all, and only remembers me from before that time. I don’t know what else he’s forgotten, but it looks like someone wiped chunks of his memory clean. I guess this was the League’s way of exiling him without killing him? The detective with lie detecting quirk checked him out and everything.”

“Why would they not want to kill him? I mean, would they punish him this much if they didn’t believe he was mostly responsible for All For One’s death?” Izuku asked, pinching his lower lip absently while he tried to think of reasons. “Not that I’m not glad that they didn’t kill him. He’s still your brother and there are still a lot of unanswered questions.”

“I asked the same thing,” Shouto said. “ Shigaraki’s quirk could have turned him to nothing but dust, ot whatever he does to his victims. Instead they cut off his hand and wiped his memory. They have a couple of theories, but the best one is just that they didn’t want to risk bringing the number one to their front door. I mean, they didn’t really do anything to me but threaten me. That’s not necessarily enough to get my father to single mindedly hunt them like animals. But if they added killing one of his other sons, regardless of the past, it might be the last straw.”

“Hmmm,” Izuku agreed, still lost in thought. 

“For now, he’s still being treated at the hospital. Aizawa said my father went there to try to talk to him, but Dabi got agitated and combative, and they made him leave.” Shouto finished. “There’s not much else, yet. Except…”

Izuku stopped his rumination at the pause and looked at Shouto with concern. “Except?”

“My father told Fuyumi and Natsuo that Touya was still alive, and that he’s now Dabi.” Shouto said, sounding bleak.

“Oh dear,” Izuku said lamely. “Did Aizawa say how that went?”

“Just that they’re processing,” Shouto said, leaning to rest his forehead against Izuku’s shoulder. “I can’t even imagine what they must be thinking or going through… they were so much closer to him than I was ever allowed to be. Natsuo always blamed my father, and insisted that Endeavor had ‘killed’ Touya with his ‘abusive training’ and ‘terrible parenting’ when they were young.”

“Ouch,” Izuku said with a grimace. 

He brought his free hand up to pat Shouto’s head gently. 

“Well, he’s not wrong,” Shouto finally said after a moment. “Touya’s as good as dead. I don’t think there’s anything left of him, anymore.”

“What about your mother?” Izuku asked.

Shouto stiffened for a moment, then relaxed with effort. “I don’t know. Aizawa didn’t say anything about her, but I don’t think anyone will tell her unless or until it becomes necessary or is deemed safe by her doctors.”

“I’m sorry. This must be so hard for you. Do they have any idea how long they’ll be keeping him in the hospital?”

“Until he’s well enough to be transferred to Tartarus. Even if he can’t remember being with the League, he’s still committed a lot of crimes. He’s a murderer, after all.” Shouto’s voice was tired-sounding.

They sat in silence for a while, Izuku stroking Shouto’s hair gently while Shouto remained leaning his head on Izuku’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” Shouto finally said quietly. “I don’t know how I’d handle this without you.”

Izuku simply hugged Shouto closer and kissed the top of his head. Internally, he was thinking that Shouto might never have had to deal with it at all, if he’d never met Izuku. Would that have been better? No… Shouto was better off embracing his quirk, and even though it was painful, facing the truth about his family.

“There’s not really anything either of us can do about the League _or_ Dabi right now,” Izuku finally murmured. “We just need to keep moving forward.”

Shouto sighed softly before sitting upright. “I don’t like this feeling. I thought that when I got out of that house, I would stop feeling so helpless.”

“I wish I could do more to make you feel better,” Izuku lamented. 

“You do more than you realize,” Shouto said with a soft smile. “But if you wanted to, a kiss might cheer me up, a little.”

“Well, I suppose it’s the least I could do…” Izuku smiled back, leaning in.

Izuku didn’t know about Shouto, but the kisses they exchanged cheered _him_ up. He was still having trouble believing that the guy he’d been daydreaming about since the first day of school shared his feelings.

They spent some time ‘comforting’ each other until a voice interrupted.

“I’m sorry to intrude,” Tenya’s said from nearby, “But it is a school night, and almost time for lights out.”

“Sorry, Tenya. We didn’t realize it was getting to be so late,” Izuku said, face a bit flushed in the dim light spilling through the doorway.

He and Shouto got to their feet and followed Tenya back inside, where they parted ways for the night.


	31. Sir Nighteye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izuku and Sir Nighteye meet again after many years, and Work Study begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I love you all so much! That’s pretty much all I wanted to say. You’re all the greatest. Here's hoping that 2020 brings better things, new challenges and less anxiety for everyone!

Two days later, Aizawa pulled Izuku aside after classes to let him know that he would be travelling to Sir Nighteye’s agency the next morning. He would be accompanied by Togata Mirio, who had agreed to facilitate the introduction (or re-introduction) to the hero. 

Izuku couldn’t help but be nervous as he prepared for the meeting. Gran had done his best to reassure him, but it was still a worry that Nighteye would not approve of him, in some way. He knew he would have to put in as much effort as he was capable of into his work, just as Togata had done to improve so much in a single year.

On Friday night, Izuku and Shouto had taken advantage of a last evening together before their lives got incredibly busy to just relax and spend time together. Shouto would be starting his remedial classes on the same day that Izuku was starting his work study. 

Bakugou had been in a foul mood when he’d learned that not only Kirishima had found work study placement, but so had Uraraka, Asui and (worst of all) Midoriya. To avoid his stomping around and caustic words, Izuku and Shouto had evacuated to the roof, which Shouto had turned into a cozy little spot for them to cuddle. He’d managed to lay out a blanket to sit on, and some snacks and drinks, and had laptop computer set up, so they could watch a movie. He’d even put up a sign on the door asking others to not disturb them. It had been a very sweet surprise, and while Izuku would have denied it, he’d teared up a bit at Shouto’s attempts at romance.

They stretched out on the blanket and watched a movie, then turned over with Izuku’s head resting on Shouto’s shoulder to cuddle and kiss while they talked about inconsequential things. It was a nice calm before the metaphorical storm of hard work and academic pressure about to blow over them all. When Shouto had walked him back to his room and kissed him goodnight, Izuku had felt as though he was walking on clouds.

In the morning morning, Izuku was running late, having stopped during his morning run to help Recovery Girl carry some boxes to her office. As a result, he didn’t get a chance to linger over breakfast with Shouto, and instead barely got the chance to give him a quick kiss on the cheek as he shoved a couple of protein bars in his bag on his way out the door. 

Togata was waiting for him by the front gate, and looked bright eyed and cheerful as he waved in greeting.

“I knew you were something special when we faced off the other day!” Togata said, instead of the customary ‘good morning.’ “You were the only one who was able to predict my movements, even a little!”

“Thanks, senpai!” Izuku said, equally cheerfully. “I’m happy I’ll be getting a chance to work with you! Please look after me!”

“Eraserhead said that we need to be especially careful travelling to and from the agency,” Togata told him. “Sometimes simple is best.”

He pulled an All Might baseball cap out of his bag and slapped it on Izuku’s head, then produced a uniform sweater vest from a school that was unaffiliated with Yuuei.

“Put that on,” Togata urged. “Anyone looking for you will be looking for a Yuuei student.”

Izuku shrugged the vest on, which was baggy on him, but not so much that it looked out of place. “Was this yours?”

“Yep! That was from my middle school It looks pretty good, as far as disguises go. It’s harder in the summer, where it would look weird if you were wearing a coat or scarf or something.” Togata said cheerfully. “Let’s head out!”

They walked to the train station, keeping an eye out for any signs of being watched or followed. Izuku knew that there was likely someone from Yuuei’s staff tailing them at least as far as the train, but he never saw even a hint of them. 

“Sir’s office is an hour train ride away, so we’ll have time to get to know each other a little better!” the blond said, sounding genuinely delighted.

Izuku had a lot of questions about Togata’s quirk, and took notes in his small pad of paper as the other boy talked. He learned a bit about Sir Nighteye’s agency, run by the man himself, two sidekicks, and (until today) one work study intern. Bubble Girl was one of the sidekicks, and had a quirk that allowed her to create bubbles filled with any scent that she has ever experienced smelling at least once before. Centipeder was the other sidekick, and he had long centipede like limbs that he used in long range attacks to catch and constrict opponents; he also had venomous pincers that could cause great pain. Both had been with the agency since they’d been hired on after each of their graduations.

“Sir says that you’ve met him before, but didn’t say much else beyond that you’d be joining our team,” Togata said curiously. “Is it a big secret, or something?”

“Not exactly,” Izuku said. He’d practiced what to say to anyone who might ask a question like this. “My guardian is Gran Torino, who helped train All Might when he was in Yuuei. I had an accident with my quirk’s backlash back when I was still in elementary school, and Gran asked Sir Nighteye to use his quirk on me to see if I was going to have any other incidents like that in the near future. I only really saw him twice at that time, and haven’t really heard much about him before you showed up at our classroom the other day.”  


“You must have made an impression on him at some point, if he asked for you personally,” Togata said seriously. “I didn’t think he was planning on taking anyone else to work study.”

“Maybe it’s because he had such great success with you,” Izuku conjectured. “That he wants to help more people with potential?”

“Maybe,” Togata said, sounding unsure. “But no matter why he chose you, just remember to work hard and trust his advice. He’s usually a few steps ahead of everyone else, even without his quirk.”

“His quirk is _foresight_,” Izuku said with a nod. “I have an idea of how it works, since he used it on me, but it was a long time ago, so the details are a bit fuzzy.”

“Oh! He’s brilliant!” Togata enthused, lighting up even more when talking about his boss. “I mean, he’s truly a genius, but he’s also just got enormous talent. He doesn’t use his quirk as much as he could, since he can only use it once a day. He has to touch the person and look them in the eye to activate it, then it stays active for an hour. He can then look at pretty much any part of a person’s life, second by second if he wants to, and he can choose to look into the near future, or further out from that. So far, everything he’s seen has happened just as he predicted.”

Izuku winced a bit at that.

“What’s wrong?” Togata asked, not missing Izuku’s expression, even with the hat.

“One of the conditions of my being allowed to do the work study is that he use his quirk on me at least once a week.”

“Use his quirk on you?” Togata sounded intrigued.

“To make sure the League isn’t going to grab me, I guess, or to take precautions if he does see that happening?” Izuku supplied. “Mostly, it’s just a form of babysitting. I feel bad, because if he can only use his quirk once a day, then using it on me even once a week is…”

“What he’ll do to keep you safe,” Togara interrupted. “I told you he doesn’t use his quirk as much as he could, so you don’t have to worry that he’d be using it on something else if he wasn’t using it on you. Like I said, he’s a brilliant man. He wouldn’t agree to that condition if he wasn’t okay with it.”

“I’ll have to trust you on that one. It makes me a little uneasy; what if he sees something bad? Will he tell me, or just let me go about my business and be prepared for how to react to it when whatever it is happens?”

“I see what you mean,” Togata said thoughtfully. “That could be nerve-wracking.”

There wasn’t much that could be done about it, though. Today would be pretty ordinary, at any rate; filling out a bit of paperwork, introductions, and maybe a tour of the patrol area. With his hero costume on, and his hood in place, he should be pretty unrecognizable. He was pretty sure Shigaraki and his lackeys had never seen him in his costume.

They finally arrived at the station nearest the agency and made the short walk in only a few minutes. Sir Nighteye’s agency was a tall, unassuming building in a long row of other similar buildings. There was nothing remotely scary about it, but suddenly Izuku felt a surge of nervousness that made him stiffen up.

“Hey!” Togata said reassuringly, waving a hand in front of Izuku’s face to gain his attention. “Don’t freak out, now! Just relax and try to make a good impression. If you can, make him smile, or even laugh.”

“Do _what_?”” Izuku asked incredulously. “Sir Nighteye has a reputation for being extremely strict; both with himself and with others. Have you _seen_ his glare? I’ve only seen it on videos, and it still gives me chills!”

“That’s his public persona,” Togata said easily. “But in private, he’s got a lot of respect for humor; maybe because he’s always so strict in public. What’s the point of a society that can’t find reasons to laugh or be happy?”

“That makes sense, I guess, but I’m not sure if he’d appreciate my sense of humor.” Izuku wasn’t even sure he _had_ a sense of humor, now that pressure was being put on him to prove it. Did he tell a joke? Do an Impression? Use a bad pun? How was he supposed to know what such a stoic and stern man might find funny?

Togata didn’t give him any time to ponder it, and all but pushed him down the hallway and up to Sir Nighteye’s office door. He threw the door open and called out, “I brought Midoriya, Sir, just like you asked!”

The scene in front of Izuku made him want to turn around and leave immediately. A blue skinned young woman that he recognized as Bubble Girl was strapped to some sort of device labeled, ‘_TICKLE HELL_’ in paint across the top. There were feathers or something similar spinning item torturing the poor sidekick, who was pleading for it to stop as her laughter kept her gasping for air. 

‘_What kind of messed up fetish is this?'_ Izuku thought to himself as he took the scene in. ‘_Why doesn’t Togata senpai think this is strange?_’

“You’re always too loud,” Sir Nighteye scolded, turning his glare toward the doorway they were standing in.

Izuku tried not to quail under that gaze, but it was difficult. Instead, he stood up straight and moved further in to the room.

“It’s nice to see you again, “ he told the man with a small smile and a polite bow. “Thank you for giving me this opportunity.”

Izuku could see Togata discreetly releasing Bubble Girl from her bondage in his periphery while he waited for his new mentor’s response.

“It’s been some time, Midoriya,” the hero said calmly. “You’re looking well. No more exploding bones?”

‘_Exploding bones?_’ Togata mouthed with a raised eyebrow behind Sir’s back.

“Not at the moment. My control has improved quite a bit since the last time we met,” Izuku said with a small smile.

“Seeing as it was non existent at the time, I’m glad to hear it,” Sir deadpanned.

Izuku grinned at that, relaxing marginally. “Yes, sir.”

He looked around and marveled at all of the All Might memorabilia gracing the walls and shelves around the room.

“Is that the limited release New Year’s banner? I’m so jealous! I think I put in about a hundred and fifty postcards to the lottery, but wasn’t chosen. Of course, as his sidekick, you probably had an easier time than someone like me. Those tenth anniversary posters weren’t even available to the public! Oh! I do have that snowglobe, though! I won the lottery they had and got the one numbered 73 of 200!” Izuku realized he was muttering a bit, and checked himself. 

“That one is number two,” Sir said with pride. “I believe that his goddaughter, Melissa Shield has the number one.”

“I didn’t know he had a goddaughter,” Izuku said more soberly. “Though I know who David Shield is, of course. She’s his daughter?”

“Yes,” Sir confirmed. “Though I’ve never met her, I’m told she is very much like her father, who is a brilliant scientist.”

They stood in mutual silence for a moment, as if showing respect for the dead.

From there, introductions were made to Bubble Girl and Centipeder, and a brief tour of the agency was given. Izuku was beginning to relax as Bubble Girl and Togata explained the day to day workings of the agency. Once the tour came to an end, he was escorted back to Sir’s office, where the hero asked the others to leave, so he could have a private talk with Izuku.

“Have a seat, Midoriya,” Nighteye said, gesturing to one of the chairs across from his desk.

Izuku did as he was asked and tried not to be too distracted by all of the amazing All Might memorabilia surrounding them.

“Tell me, why do you think I asked specifically for you to do your work study here?”

Izuku decided that honesty was the best policy, and spoke his mind. “To be honest, at first I thought you were going to try and convince me that I should give One For All to Togata senpai.”

Nighteye steepled his fingers together and rested his index finders against his chin as he considered that. “You would have been correct at one time,” he said at length. “I’m still not completely convinced that you are the best person to carry on All Might’s legacy. Tell me why you came to the conclusion that I had not actually called you here for that reason.”

“Well, I wasn’t sure, so I talked to Gran about it. I’m sure you’re aware that he’s been my guardian since my mother died; plus he trained All Might back when he was at Yuuei, so I trust his judgement about it,” Izuku explained. “He told me that the reason that One For All kept getting passed down was so that one day All For One could be defeated. Now that he’d dead, it’s kind of served it’s main purpose.”

“All For One is _not_ dead, Midoriya.” Sir Nighteye said it calmly as if it was a matter of fact that Izuku should be aware of.

Izuku felt as though he’d been struck by lightning for a moment, going numb as panic tried to dig its claws into him. “But… the fire. He left himself vulnerable by giving away his regenerative quirk, and…”

“Oh, his body has been destroyed, and the man himself is gone from this world,” Sir agreed. “But he lives on in his disciple, Shigaraki, and those who followed him and worshipped him as some sort of underworld god. His tenets and beliefs are still alive, and perhaps even stronger than when he was at the helm, now that his mentee has been motivated to try to take over and fill his shoes.”

Izuku let his heart settle back into a normal rhythm, and unclenched his fists. His nails had left crescent shaped dents in his palms from how tightly he’d been clenching his hands. 

“He blames me,” Izuku said simply. “I was the catalyst for All For One’s death, as far as he sees it. All For One told me that he wanted us to be rivals or nemeses or something one day. He was planning to give Shigaraki his quirks, or at least quirks that he thought would help him beat me, once I got a handle on One For All. It was like some sort of script he had written and directed as it played out.”

“That’s actually not a bad analogy,” Sir said. “But all of that aside, you still haven’t told me why you think I asked for you, if not to make you give up One For All.”

“I’m hoping it’s because you saw how hard I’ve been working, and wanted to help guide me to make the most of this quirk. I mean, who else knows it better than you, who stood by him for five years? I know I might not be who _he_ would have chosen to be his successor, if he’d had time to consider it and look for candidates, but I still want to become the kind of hero he would have been proud of.”

“I’ll do my part to properly guide you, but you’re going to be doing all of the work,” Sir Nighteye promised. “Do you think you have what it takes to be the next Symbol of Peace?”

“No, sir.”

Izuku’s answer was immediate, and his demeanor calm. Sir Nighteye didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow.

“Explain.”

“The world had a Symbol of Peace in All Might and when that was ripped away from us, the world, especially Japan, fell into chaos for a while that still hasn’t completely settled,” Izuku explained. “I don’t know if we could survive that again. I’d rather be a Pillar of Hope or an Emblem of Progress or something like that. No one should hang their hopes on a single person for too long, or they’ll forget that they also have to do their part to make the world a better place.”

“I see,” Sir said thoughtfully. “You’ve given this some thought.”

“Yes, sir. Someone asked me what kind of hero I wanted to be, once. It struck a chord with me, because at the time, I wasn’t sure. I wanted to save people, but I didn’t think too deeply past that before I was asked. No one could ever replace All Might, and I don’t think anyone should; not even the one who inherited his power.”

“I must say, I’m impressed,” Nighteye told him. “I don’t think I was expecting you to be this prepared as a first year. Your entire class has become stronger with the experiences they’ve had these past couple of months. Trial by fire does have some benefits, I suppose. Now… for now, you’ll be coming to work here three times a week; weekends and Wednesdays, to start. You’ll be travelling to and from this agency with Togata Mirio, who is extremely capable. Do you have any questions for me?”

“It’s not really all that relevant, but can I ask about the tickling thing with Bubble girl?” His eyes flicked over to the machine standing at the ready near the well.

“She was not showing enough humor in her daily report. A society that can’t laugh is doomed,” Nighteye said, as if that explained everything perfectly.

“Is this something I can expect…?” Izuku asked, dreading the answer.

“Not if you keep your sense of humor,” came the unsettling answer. “You seem to have one, though you haven’t made me laugh, yet. Give it a try.”

“Right now?” Izuku asked with trepidation?

“Right now.” Nighteye seemed to be enjoying his discomfort.

Izuku swallowed hard, then made a decision… with effort, he arranged his face in his best impression of All Might and said, “My skin looks ten years younger!”

There was silence for a moment as Sir Nighteye studied his face. Then he cracked a smile and huffed out a small laugh. “The Vinegar River Incident.”

“Yes! I know it didn’t get a lot of coverage, because there was no villain involved, but his interview was amazing!” Izuku enthused.

“That happened before I joined him,” Sir mused.

“I wish I could have known him,” Izuku said wistfully. “He was just so… larger than life. It’s one of the reasons I know I’ll never be his replacement; he was who he was, and his quirk didn’t have a lot to do with that. He was just a genuinely good man with a lot of charisma and optimism.”

“Yes, he was,” Sir agreed softly. “Now, the conditions of your employment here include my using my quirk on you, to make sure that you’re not walking blindly into imminent danger.”

“Yes, sir,” Izuku said obediently. “Gran calls me a trouble magnet, but he wanted me to take this opportunity because you’re such an excellent teacher and I need to learn as much as I can as quickly as I can.”

“It’s not an unreasonable request,” Sir admitted, getting to his feet. “I’d like to get it out of the way for now, since I plan to have you go on a routine patrol with Mirio today. Understand that this time, I will only be looking into the near future, to cover your first couple of days with the agency.”

“I understand. I would also like to ask that you not tell me anything about it, unless you foresee my death or something horrible like that,” Izuku said, also getting to his feet.

“Agreed,” Nighteye said, holding out his hand.

Izuku met his gaze and took his hand for a moment, and waited until Sir released it. The man stood silently for a moment, as if lost in thought, then blinked and straightened his jacket. 

“You’re cleared to go,” he said. “I've foreseen that you'll arrive unharmed back at Yuuei this evening, and for the next week. Mirio will show you the locker room where you can get changed into your hero costume.”

Izuku changed and met with Togata, Sir and Bubble Girl, where he was brought up to speed on their current investigation into Chisaki Kai, also known as Overhaul, because of his quirk that allowed him to take things apart and put them back together. He was a yakuza in an era where such organizations were a rare occurrence. He was working to rebuild his group, the Shie Hassaikai, who were involved in multiple operations of drug trafficking, extortion and business ‘protection’ . 

Izuku studied the picture of the man, who was wearing a plague doctor type of mask, but looked fairly young. From what intelligence they’d gathered, they knew that he was germaphobe, and that he felt that quirks were a plague visited on humanity that he wanted to eradicate. 

“Remember his face, and don’t give him any reason to suspect anything, if you should ever encounter him,” Sir told them before they went separate ways. “We’re keeping close tabs on him; he’s been making some unusual plays lately, and may be up to something big.”

Twenty minutes later, Deku had a bit of a spring in his step as he left the agency building with Togata for his first patrol of the area. Sir and Bubble Girl were going on a patrol of their own, in the opposite direction, to gather information.

“You went to an internship with Endeavor, so patrolling should be pretty straight forward for you,” Togata told them as they set out. 

Izuku was making a mental note of the details of Togata’s costume and wondering if the cape had a purpose, or was just for show.

“Oh! Yes! We went on patrol, but it was… different than I think other heroes might do it, so I’m eager to find out your views on it.”

“Leave it to me!” Togata told him, pausing to flex his arms dramatically. “I’ll show you how it’s done! By the way, I don’t know your hero name!”

“Oh! It’s Deku!” he said with a smile that couldn’t be seen behind his mask and jaw guard.

“Eh? Like...blockhead? Are you really okay with that? Is that some kind of metaphor?”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Izuku assured him. “What about you?”

“Mine’s Lemillion! Because I want to save at least a million people during my hero career. That’s a minimum, of course!”

“Nice,” Izuku approved. 

They walked the streets, where school girls pointed and whispered, older people and shop owners smiled or waved and Lemillion greeted everyone cheerfully. 

After a few minutes, they came to a more commercial area of their patrol route without encountering so much as a shoplifter. It was almost time to start heading back to the agency when something--or someone-- crashed into Deku from a side alley, and fell to the ground.

Izuku looked down and saw a small girl that looked to be about five or so. He looked frightened and seemed to be dressed only in a thin nightgown. Her arms and legs were wrapped in bandages, her skin was pale, and she had a short horn growing out of one side of her forehead.

He knelt down to be on her level, and reached down to help her up, but she cringed away. “I’m sorry, I probably look scary with this hood and mask, huh?” He reached up and tugged it free, so his face and hair were visible and offered her an encouraging smile. “Are you hurt?”

Once she could see his face, she launched herself into his arms and clung tightly. Izuku looked to Togata and saw the surprise on his face, as well.

“I’m scared,” the little girl whimpered quietly.

A moment later they could hear footsteps, and a man stepped out of the alley saying, “Now, Eri, you can’t go running around causing trouble for heroes.”

At the sound of his voice, the girl squeaked and buried her face into Izuku’s chest, so he didn’t immediately look up at the man. When he did, he immediately stilled, stiffening as he recognized the trademark plague doctor mask of Chisaki Kai, the very man Sir Nighteye had warned them about that morning. 

Izuku’s eyes shot to Togata, who had to have recognized him as well, but he senpai seemed unflustered and confident. Izuku put a comforting hand on the girl’s back and let Togata take the lead.

“It’s no trouble at all, sir! It’s our job as heroes in training to help those in need! Especially little kids that find their way into trouble!”

“Yes, my daughter is quite a handful.” Chisaki said.

“She’s covered in bandages,” Izuku said to Chisaki. “Was she in an accident?”

“She had to undergo some extensive medical testing,” Chisaki said easily. “She ran away this morning because she doesn’t want to take her medicine. Isn’t that right, Eri?”

Eri shivered and pressed herself even closer to Izuku.

“Thank you for your concern,” Chisaki said to Izuku, though he eyes held no sign of gratitude above his mask. “You seem familiar to me. Have we met before?”

“No, I think I’d remember a mask like that,” Izuku countered. “Unless we met when you weren’t wearing it?”

It was a long shot, but if he could get the man to remove his mask, they could make a sketch to better be able to identify him without it.

“I have allergies, and this city is filthy,” Chisaki said dismissively. “I should be getting Eri back; she’s not even wearing shoes.”

Izuku didn’t want to let the girl go; she was clearly terrified, clinging to him as tightly as he little fingers could manage. He he didn’t believe the story Chisaki had given them for even a moment. His grip stiffened until Togata spoke. 

“Understandable. Perhaps if we took you both to a hospital, they’d have better luck giving her the medicine she needs?”

“Unnecessary.” Chisaki said with a wave of his gloved hand. “I have a nurse to look after her. Eri, we’re going. Now. You don’t want to cause these young men any more _trouble_ do you?”

The inflection in this voice rang of malice, and Eri trembled. She looked over her shoulder and Izuku saw her blanch at the sight of Chisaki beginning to remove his gloves, but then she twisted out of his grasp and trotted toward Chisaki obediently.

“Done being naughty?” Chisaki asked Eri.

The girl nodded meekly, and Izuku’s stomach twisted as he watched them retreat down the alley. Every instinct he had was telling him to pursue Chisaki and take the girl, and at the same time, he knew that he had to let them go.

“I hate this,” Izuku growled out, hands fisted impotently at his sides. “If he’s telling the truth, I’ll quit Yuuei and become a monk.”

“Agreed,” Togata said, sounding frustrated. “We should report this to Sir immediately.”

“And in the meantime, that poor girl… what will happen to her? She was shaking like a leaf and holding on really, really tight.”

“I know,” Togata said, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. “But to bust him now, with no evidence other than our intuition, would ruin any actual evidence or case that Sir already has in the works. With luck and hard work, we’ll be able to take him and his whole group down, soon.”

_’Not soon enough,_’ Izuku thought grimly.

Sir texted Togata immediately and had them rendezvous back at the agency. They met in a small conference room to go over the details of the encounter, where Izuku learned that Chisaki Kai did not have a child. The twist in his gut became almost painful as he thought of what a man like Chisaki might do to a defenseless child. Togata looked equally furious as they related every scrap of information that they could remember from the man’s clothing and the detail on his mask, to the exact location they had found Eri. 

“I could have rescued her,” Izuku growled miserably, clenching his fists. “I could have just taken her and _run_.”

“Pure arrogance,” Sir stated with some scorn. “Don’t think that being a hero is as easy as just grabbing for what’s easy and calling it acceptable! Taking that girl would have ruined all of our work. This will take planning and meticulous execution. The worst villains our there lurk in the shadows, and traps need to be laid once we determine their plans.”

“I know that,” Izuku gritted out. “I don’t have to like it.”

Togata put a hand on his shoulder and nodded. “I feel the same way. All the more reason that we get everyone involved, so she never has to be afraid again.”

“Midoriya, I’ll have to contact Gran Torino to get his permission for you to remain on this case;” Sir told him as they concluded their meeting. “Chisaki was seen in the company of a known member of the League of Villains called _Twice_, recently. We didn’t think anything of it past a chance encounter, but today we learned that he may have had contact with Shigaraki Tomura recently, as well. Reports are unconfirmed, but considering Gran’s reticence with anything to do with the League, I feel obligated to tell him.”

Izuku was frustrated by this, but knew it would be useless to argue-- with Sir, at least. He would definitely argue his case with Gran, should he try to stop him from doing this work study after only a day, based on an unconfirmed rumor.

The train ride wasn’t as cheerful going back to Yuuei as it had been to the agency that morning. Togata sent a couple of text messages, and then seemed lost in thought for most of the ride. Izuku tried to be optimistic, but it was hard when his mind kept supplying him with different scenarios of what a yakuza might do with a small girl.

“Your guardian won’t pull you from the case, will his?” Togata asked as they left the train and began the walk back to the school.

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Izuku said with determination.

“That’s the kind of attitude I want to hear!” Togata said, pounding Izuku companionable on the back with enough force to make him stumble. “We’ll rescue Eri, together!”

Izuku felt a little better, hearing that. 

The rest of the walk to school was a bit more relaxed. It was nearly dinnertime, and Izuku was hungry. Togata made sure Izuku made it all the way back to the 1-A dorms before departing for his own, and Izuku stepped inside to find the common room a lively center of activity, with a large group gathered around the television. He quickly switched out his shoes for slippers and went to investigate.

“What’s going on?” he asked Uraraka, who was standing behind the couch.

“Todoroki’s kicking everyone’s butt at Mario Kart!” she said with an amazed tone. “He said he’s never even played a video game before!”

Sure enough, Shouto was seated on the floor with a controller in his hand, racing as Toad in an intense battle for first against Sero, Hitoshi and Jiro. Izuku moved around the group to study him as he played. Shouto’s face was a mask of concentration as he competed, and just for a moment, his tongue peeked out between his lips when Toad was in a tight spot. Izuku grinned at the sight.

“Hey! What happened to his face?” Izuku suddenly asked in alarm. In his curiosity about the game, he hadn’t immediately noticed that there was a bandage taped to his cheek, and a bruise on his chin.

“I guess the remedial training was pretty tough,” Shouji supplied from his spot on the couch. “Bakugou’s all roughed up, too. They just got back about an hour ago.”

“Ouch,” Izuku said with a sympathetic tone.

He left everyone to the game and went to his room to change. He had forgotten he was wearing a sweater vest and hat from his ‘disguise’ and tugged them off. He had just pulled on a pair of shorts when his phone rang.

“Hey kid. Got a call from Nighteye. Thought you might be worried.”

Gran’s voice didn’t sound particularly stern over the connection.

“Hey Gran!” Izuku greeted. He could hear barking in the background and assumed that Taiyaki was excited about something. “Kind of worried, but mostly because I don’t want you to say I can’t continue with my work study.”

“Nighteye didn’t seem overly concerned for now,” Gran said. “As long as he keeps using his quirk to make sure you’re not in mortal danger. The need to get the training hasn’t changed.”

“Thanks, Gran,” Izuku said, feeling relieved. “Are you doing alright living by yourself?”

“I’m fine. I’m not alone, anyway,” came the amused answer. “Taiyaki sticks to me like glue, even in the damn toilet. I gotta take him out for a walk now. Take care, kid.”

The call ended, and Izuku felt his mood lift. He wasn’t being forced to drop his work study! He bounded down the stairs, hoping dinner was almost ready, and found his friends clamoring to be the next to try to defeat Shouto at Mario Kart. 

When Shouto noticed Izuku standing at the doorway to the stairwell, he simply handed his controller to Sero and stood up. “Thanks, everyone.”

“You’re quitting?” Ashido shrieked in disbelief. 

“Yes,” he said easily, but without rudeness. He stepped over the others’ legs and went to Izuku.

“You didn’t have to stop playing,” Izuku told him with a small smile. “It looked like you were having fun.”

“It was fun,” Shouto agreed, “but I wanted to spend time with you. Are you going to be going back tomorrow?”

“That’s the plan,” Izuku answered, walking with Shouto to the dining area so they could sit at a table to talk. “You have more training tomorrow, right?”

“Yes. They aren’t going easy on us. Even though most of us failed the test because of personality conflicts or deficiencies, they’re going over all of the main points of the exam, so we’re going to be doing battle technique, ethics and decision making skills, rescue training and a lot of other things.”

Izuku couldn’t talk much about his work study, other than to say he went on patrol and was being taught the ins and outs of the agency. Anything else was confidential, and even if he wanted to talk about it, it wasn’t allowed. 

After they ate, they started on their homework. Izuku went to Shouto’s room, where they worked in companionable silence on assignments that they wouldn't have much time to work on at any other point. It wasn’t as fun as cuddling and kissing, but it was soothing in its own way.

The following week was busy, though not as eventful as Izuku would have thought, after his first patrol with Lemillion. They did some physical training together (mostly for fun, to see if Izuku could work out a strategy to sneak up on or touch Togata before he was able to phase). School was intensifying their hero training in accordance with their status as provisional license holders, and their academics were just as challenging as before. The days fell into a sort of pattern, and Izuku was feeling both tired and happy with the progress he was making.

Izuku noticed that he wasn’t the only one improving his skills. Kirishima, Uraraka and Tsuyu were all obviously pulling ahead of the others during hero training. They were being run through various obstacle courses on par with the one they had traversed in the Sports Festival, but were often challenged not to use their quirks when presented with obstacles. They were being forced to rely on their own strength and intelligence to pass many trials.

Bakugou always seemed to be frustrated and always demanded to know what the big secret was to improving so quickly. Even Aizawa, who was usually a harsh taskmaster, found little fault with their performances in recent days.

On the second Wednesday with Sir Nighteye’s agency, Izuku was feeling comfortable enough with patrols to greet people in the friendly way that he had noticed Togata doing, before. Shopkeepers were beginning to recognize him and include him when they called out their good mornings. It was a nice feeling.

Even better, it seemed that since the report of Overhaul being seen with Twice, there had been no further reports of any interaction between the Shie Hassaikai and the League of Villains. In fact, if rumors were to be believed, there had been an altercation between the two that had left the villain called Magne dead, and Mr. Compress injured. Magne had certainly not been seen at any of her usual hangouts in the past two weeks. 

Sir Nighteye and Bubble Girl had been busy collecting information and following up on leads. As Togata and Izuku were readying to go back to Yuuei, they were told that on Saturday, they would be meeting at a different location for an ‘information sharing’ with a couple of other agencies. Izuku hoped that meant they were getting closer to rescuing Eri.

“We must be getting close to finding where they’re keeping her,” Togata told Izuku as they exited the train and began the walk back to school. “I’ll bet Saturday’s meeting will be a planning se--”

Izuku blinked as Togata fell to one knee, clutching his upper arm with a look of pain etched in his face. There was no time to even ask what was wrong before Izuku felt a sting between his shoulder blades, and a familiar dizziness wash over him. 

“NO!” he tried to shout, but his voice was slurred, and his eyesight was growing dim before he even hit the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted it last week, but in case you didn’t see it, the smut chapter I was talking about before can be found on my author’s page, entitled, “Birthday Fun” if you wanted to check it out. If not, no biggie! Did I mention how much I appreciate all of my readers? Cause I do!


	32. New Developments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izuku learns something new about his quirk(s)!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters may be slowing down, soon, but I'm writing as fast as I can! Enjoy!

The smell of antiseptic was the first thing that Izuku registered. With undertones of...bleach? His head was throbbing, and it was difficult to think straight. He blinked against the bright, artificial light, expecting to see hospital machinery or curtains surrounding a bed. But there was no bed, was there? There was a rough texture under his hands (carpet?), which still felt numb and unmanageable at his sides. The walls and ceiling within his field of vision was a stark white, but this was no hospital.

He tried to turn his head, but it lolled to the side, instead. He felt oddly weak, as if he’d been through a long illness that left him with no strength. 

“He’s awake,” a gravelly voice said from somewhere out of his line of sight.

“We should probably cuff him,” came another voice nearby.

“Where am I?” Izuku asked… or he _tried_ to ask, with his slurred speech.

There was the sound of approaching footsteps, and a man in a plague mask came into view. Izuku’s heart leapt into his throat for a moment before he realized that the man was not Chisaki Kai, but probably one of his underlings. The man roughly rolled Izuku onto this side and secured a zip-tie around his wrists, just tightly enough to begin to cut into his skin and slow circulation to his hands. 

“That’ll hold him,” the second voice said with satisfaction. “Without his quirk, he ain’t going anywhere.”

_’Without his quirk?’_ What did that mean? He struggled to call up One For All, but it refused to answer his summons.

Izuku tried to strain against the binding, but had no strength. He couldn’t even lift his head more than an inch above the ground. He had a feeling any moves he was able to make were slow, even though he felt like his heart was racing along with his mind.

“Where am I?” he tried again.

“Just some empty apartment,” the first voice finally supplied. “We ain’t stupid enough to bring you to our real hideout.”

They didn’t bother to return him to his back, leaving him on his side. It was uncomfortable on his neck, but probably better than laying on his arms. If he had more strength or coordination, he might be able to roll to his stomach, and from there, get to his knees, so he could sit upright. For now, all he could do was stay where they put him.

“Why?” Izuku noted that his mouth was dry; he was very thirsty.

“You’re just gonna be held until the boss sets up a meeting with Shigaraki.” the first voice told him easily. “Don’t give us any trouble, and we won’t have to put you back under.”

“You work with the League?” Izuku managed to get out. 

His tongue felt thick and sticky in his mouth. How long had he been here? He was already fighting back a huge panic attack at his inability to call One For All out to help him free himself. His body felt oddly _still_, like a room where a fan that’s been running constantly gets turned off. The hum of power that was always present in the background of his consciousness was absent, and it was unsettling in the extreme.

“Those assholes are going to be working for _us_,” said the man who had bound his arms. “Once Overhaul promises to deliver you in exchange for their cooperation, they’ll be falling all over themselves to help us. It’s a win/win.”

“Not that you’ll be around to witness any of it,” the first man said nonchalantly. “From what I hear, your days were numbered from the second All For One bit it. Shigaraki has orders out all over the country that you’re to be brought to him alive, so he can kill you himself. There’s a huge reward on your head, though I don’t think the League has the money to back that up.”

“That doesn’t matter,” the second man said dismissively. “It’s not money we’re after at the moment.”

They were going to turn him over to Shigaraki. As a bargaining chip. No. _No!no!no!_ This was bad! They’d shut off One For All somehow, and were going to hand him over to a man who wanted to kill him, when he had no way of fighting back. He needed a plan, and he needed it _now_.

“What did you do to me?” he rasped out, hating that he couldn’t see them. There seemed to be only two of them, but there could be more, just not making any noise.

“Nothing permanent.” the first voice said.

“Pity,” the second voice said. “I still say we should have stripped him for good.”

“That formula ain’t ready yet. Besides, Shigaraki might want him with his quirk in tact.”

“What the hell for?”

“Who knows what that nutjob thinks? Maybe to prove he can take him down, even when he’s at full power? I don’t care, either way.”

Izuku felt a surge of relief wash over him when he heard that his quirk wasn’t permanently taken from him. It seemed like he might get it back before they handed him over. If that was true, then he had a chance. He could wait until they reversed the effects of whatever they had done to him, and make a break for it.

Then anger surged in. They _took his quirk away_, even if it was only temporarily. How dare they? What gave them the right? This is the sort of thing that All For One did! 

“They’ll have to move quick, or we’ll have to give him another hit. We don’t want the serum wearing off before the handoff; this kid’s quirk is no joke.”

“Relax. There’s still at least twelve hours before we have to worry about that. They said Boss would be on his way to get the kid before sunrise.”

Before sunrise? He’d gotten off the train with Togata at around six pm. Sunset was at around seven-thirty. He had no way of knowing was time it was, but he had to assume that he’s been taken several hours ago, at least. The last thing he remembered was Togata grabbing his own arm and falling to one knee; then a sharp pain in his own back. Was Togata here somewhere, too?

“What did you do with senpai?” Izuku managed to ask around the lump in his throat.

“That blond kid? Nothing. We don’t need him.”

That was something, at least. Togata may not be able to help the heroes with any information, but at least he hadn’t been taken, too. He only had to worry about himself.

“Will you two _shut up_?” came a third voice. “He doesn’t need to know anything.”

“Way to go, you woke Hojo,” the first voice said petulantly. 

So there were at least three of them. Izuku’s throbbing head was making him nauseous, but he swallowed against it. The man had said that whatever they had done to his quirk would wear off, but they had also said that it wouldn’t return for another twelve hours. He would have to rely on his own, not inconsiderable, natural strength to get out of this.

He could hear heavy footfalls on the floor, and the voice was suddenly closer, though Izuku couldn’t see anything, facing the wall as he was.

“If either of you lets anything else slip, you’ll be eating my crystals.” the new voice promised.

“Okay, okay. He’s as good as dead, anyway,” the second voice said in a placating tone.

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s what Shigaraki thought the first time _he_ had the kid. Then the brat escaped and killed his boss,” the one called Hojo told them. “I’m not taking any chances.”

“But we’re not those League dumbasses, and the kid’s as good as quirkless,” voice two argued. “I get what you’re saying, but there’s no way he’s getting out of this.”

“You’d better pray he doesn’t, or Overhaul will be the _least_ of your worries,” Hojo warned. 

“Got it,” voice one said.

“Got it,” voice two echoed. 

Everything got quiet after that. The heavy footfalls retreated, and there was a sound that seemed like Hojo had gone back to his place on the sofa? Bed? Izuku didn’t care; he was grateful he’d shut the other two up. He needed to _think_.

The throbbing in his head, the dryness of his throat and the numbness in his hands from his bindings weren’t helping him concentrate, and Izuku fought down a sob. They must have realized he was missing by now. Someone would have found Togata quickly, and because he was wearing a Yuuei uniform, they’d likely call there, first. Even if Togata had been knocked out, they would understand that Izuku was gone, since he was supposed to escort Izuku to and from the agency. Surely they were looking for him. There were cameras at the train stations, some of the shops had them, too. There had to be clues, even if the men who took them had been careful. Right?

But what if one of the men had a quirk that made them invisible? What if they had disabled the cameras? They had obviously planned this ahead of time, to be this prepared. Had they confiscated his phone? They could track him with that. They could probably track the case his hero suit was in, if they’d grabbed that, as well.,, but that was hoping for too much. These men weren’t stupid. They would have thought of such obvious things.

He lost track of how much time had passed. The men didn’t speak, there was no television or radio to help gauge the passing hours, and the only sounds were the soft snoring of Hojo nearby and the occasional creak of a chair.

Finally, a phone vibrated. 

“Hojo,” Hojo answered. “Right. Got it.”

He hung up and told his comrades, “Overhaul will be here to get the kid in the next half an hour.”

Izuku’s heart went wild, and with it, the throbbing in his head. If he hadn’t already been on the floor, it would have brought him to his knees. A fog began swirling in his mind, as if he was looking down a misty tunnel, and within that tunnel was a group of silhouettes of people. Eight figures stood in stark contrast to the blurred surroundings, leaving Izuku confused. One of them...one of them looked like _All Might_? What was going on? Was he hallucinating? Had he died?

In his periphery, he could hear a lot of noise, but it seemed distant and unimportant in the wake of what he was experiencing at the moment. One of the figures stepped forward, away and apart from the other seven, and more detail came into focus.

“All Might.” Izuku croaked. He registered that not only his head was hurting now, but his arms felt as though they were on fire. He wanted it to stop.

“Got yourself in a bind, eh, young man?” All Might asked in his deep booming voice.

“How is this possible? You’re… you’re…”

“Dead,” All Might finished for him. “And I gave you One For All before I died. Sorry about that...not much choice, there.”

“I’m going to be dead, too. They’re going to kill me,” Izuku told him, feeling the tears running hot from his eyes. “I wasn’t good enough. Or...am I dead, already?”

“No. It’s not your time, yet. You’re doing amazingly well with One For All, and you’re not alone. All of us are with you,” All Might told him, gesturing to the hazy figures behind him. “We’ve got help for you.”

“Get to the point,” a voice from the group of figures barked out, his voice a strange echo. “There’s no time!”

“Midoriya Izuku,” All Might said with his trademark smile in place. “We are the previous holders of One For All. We believed that once All For One was dead, it’s purpose would be served and it could come to an end, but we were wrong.”

“What do you mean?” Izuku asked desperately, his entire body in agony. “What’s going on?”

Another figure stepped out of the ether and All Might stepped backward to allow him to speak. This man was shorter than All Might, and bald. He wore a reinforced leather jacket with a tall collar, and a bandolier rested diagonally across his bare chest. There were goggles resting on his forehead, as if waiting to be slid over his eyes, and his expression was stern.

“Didn’t you hear him? You’re not alone! The previous holders are inside of you, along with all of our quirks, and you’re going to learn how to use ‘em as they decide to manifest. Right now, you’ve got _my_ quirk coursin’ through ya, and it’s running wild while we’re havin’ this little chat. But...I’m outta time. It’s called _Black Whip_. You need to get a grip on yourself and settle your heart, if you want to learn to control it. It’s been growing stronger in the heart of One For All, so it’s bound to be a lot more potent than it was in my day. 

“You were just focusing really hard on escaping, right? It’s lucky for you that my quirk is the best one to do that job. It’s top grade! Anger can help you call it out and will fuel it, which is what happened here, but you have to control your heart. You’re about to get six more quirks, so be prepared, Kiddo. Ack...I’m out of time; I’m just a spirit, after all. Just know that you’re going to be the one to complete One For All! It’s crazy strong with eight of us adding to it all this time! Use it well!”

The man, along with all of the other figures, faded away like smoke being blown away by a soft wind. When they dissipated and dispersed, Izuku became aware that his arms were no longer bound behind him, and there were black tendrils of some solid, smoke-like substance pouring uncontrollably from his hands and arms. Was this the Black Whip he’d been told about? 

When his normal vision returned, he could see that the apartment was a wreck. There were what looked like scorch marks in stripes all over the walls, floor and ceiling. There were what looked like shattered crystals or broken glass scattered everywhere, and three men lying on the floor, bloody and unconscious (or dead?). There was a large hole in the wall with a couch pushed halfway through, and one end still inside the apartment. There were other holes that he could see the night sky through, meaning that there was at least one outside wall in this place. He prayed that the destruction hadn’t caused any injury to civilians outside.

_”Settle your heart,”_ Izuku repeated quietly, trying to rein in the tendrils still running wild, thrashing about and causing damage. “_Control your heart._”

He was quickly running out of energy and his head still felt as though it had been hit with an axe. 

_”Those guys are down. You’re not tied up. You can leave, but not until this is under control. CALM DOWN._” Izuku tried to talk himself down from his panic, but it was a losing battle. Soon he’d lose consciousness and they’d just take him to Shigaraki, anyway. Overhaul was on his way _right now_. He couldn’t allow that to happen; he had to hold something in reserve for later. Too many people had worked too hard to get him to where he was today for him to give up now.

“Deku! What’s going on? Deku!” Eraserhead was suddenly in the room, capture weapon in hand.

“New quirk!” Izuku grated out through clenched teeth. “Can’t stop it! Need help!”

A moment later, Izuku collapsed to the ground, the black tendrils gone. Aizawa’s hair had lifted into the air, a sure sign he was using his quirk, and the only sound in the room was from Izuku’s labored breathing and half-sobs.

“I’ve got you,” Eraserhead told him gruffly. “Stay with me, now. We’re getting you out of here.”

“Overhaul’s coming. He’s on his way,” Izuku managed to whisper. “Gonna hand me over to Shigaraki.”

“Over my dead body.”

Izuku was past his limit. He felt his teacher lift him in his arms with a quiet, _’oof’_ and then they were moving. It didn’t matter to Izuku where they were going, as long as it was AWAY. He slid into blissful darkness, even as he was carried into the open air.

The next time Izuku opened his eyes, it was to a bright light, and crowd of faces surrounding him. The light triggered more pain in his head, which triggered the nausea. He was aided in turning to the side, where someone was quick to hold something up for him to vomit into. The retching made his head hurt even more, which turned into a vicious cycle for a couple of minutes, until some medication was delivered via syringe into his hip. Another injection and a burning sting brought with it a relief from pain that made tears form in his eyes.

He was in a hospital; that much was clear from the sounds and the doctors and nurses surrounding him. A doctor told him he was safe and in the Emergency Room, and that they would take care of him.

Izuku was still breathing heavily from the exertion of being violently sick as his eyes traveled around the room, seeking anyone familiar. Someone wiped his mouth for him, and offered him a drink of cold water through a straw. He greedily swallowed until the straw was taken away, and tolerated all of the attention as sticky pads were stuck to his chest and hooked to machines, needles were poked into him and was asked a million questions.

His throat felt raw, but he tried to answer everything they asked, until the curtain surrounding the bed slid aside and Eraserhead stepped in.

“How’s he doing?” his teacher asked the nearest medic.

“Better. He regained consciousness, but had pretty severe round of vomiting until we got some meds into him. He seems alert and oriented, but needs to rest.”

Eraserhead nodded as his eyes found Izuku’s. 

“Togata?” Izuku managed.

“He’s fine,” Aizawa told him, staying back out of the way of the nurses moving around, getting his student settled. “Recovering back at Yuuei. Gran Torino’s been called and should be on his way soon, and I left a message for Sir Nighteye.”

Izuku nodded, and yawned widely. “How long was I…”

“It’s been about fifteen hours, now. It was Overhaul’s men?” Eraserhead asked.

Izuku nodded again. “One was named Hojo, but I couldn’t really see anything but the wall.”

”Before you passed out you said they were going to take you to Shigaraki.”

“That was their plan. They did something to my quirk, but said it would wear off in another twelve hours. I… I still can’t feel it. I can’t sense my quirk.” Izuku said, realizing that it was past the time it was supposed to wear off.

The machine next to the bed began to beep rapidly, and a nurse glared at Aizawa. 

“Can’t this wait until later?” she asked pointedly.

“No,” both Izuku and Aizawa said in tandem.

The nurse rolled her eyes and finished hanging an IV bag above Izuku’s head.

Once Izuku was all hooked up to several monitors and had fluids and medicine flowing into him, the nurses left him with an admonition to rest.

“Okay, problem child,” Aizawa said, stepping closer to the bed and looking down at his student. “What the hell did you do? Did they give you a quirk booster?”

“No, nothing like that. My quirk...One For All...they somehow turned it off,” Izuku told him. “The other thing was...something else.”

He moved his eyes meaningfully around the curtains; they had no privacy here.

“Right. Well, they gave Togata something similar. They shot him with some sort of bullet-dart hybrid that cancelled out his quirk for a while. He was just beginning to get it back when I found you, apparently,” Aizawa told him. “Yours should be coming back soon; they might have given you something else that ‘s making it last longer.”

“Whatever it was, it gave me a huge headache, made me really thirsty and it was hard to think,” Izuku said.

“I’ll bet,” Aizawa commiserated. “I’m going to go make a couple of calls. Your friends and classmates are worried.”

“Oh, no!” Izuku groaned.

Shouto and Hitoshi were probably seriously upset.

“Get some rest. I’ll let them know you’re safe, and I’ll see how long they’re going to hold you here.”

Aizawa left, and Izuku yawned again. Whatever they had given him for his headache and nausea was making him drowsy. With nothing to do but wait, and Aizawa nearby to make sure nothing more happened to him, he slid into sleep.

“They’re not going to clear him to leave until they know his quirk is back,” came a familiar voice from nearby. 

Izuku swam out of the depths of dreamless sleep and opened his eyes. Aizawa was sitting in a plastic chair by the bed with his arms crossed over his chest as he slouched.

He turned his head to find Principal Nezu standing on a chair on the other side of the bed. 

“Ah! Midoriya-kun, you’re awake!” he squeaked. “Excellent. How do you feel?”

“Better,” Izuku said at once. 

It was true. His headache was gone, his stomach was settled, and he could feel the familiar hum of his quirk coursing through him. He opened up the floodgates, so to speak, and the familiar red glow appeared, along with a few crackles of green lightning over his skin.

“Even better,” Nezu pronounced. “They’ll be taking a few more blood samples and running a couple of scans, but then you’ll be cleared to go back to the dorms.”

“Did Gran make it?” Izuku asked, turning to look over at his teacher.

“He got held up. Two of your captors escaped, but the third was taken in for interrogation,” Aizawa said. “He’s helping.”

“Ah,” Izuku said, understanding at once. He didn’t envy whichever of the criminals was being subjected to that.

“He’s also going to have a word with Nighteye, to find out if he foresaw this and didn’t tell us, or if he didn’t keep his word to use his quirk to ensure your safety.”

“To be fair,” Izuku said carefully, “he might have looked far enough ahead that he saw I was fine, and didn’t want to intervene in something I could learn from.”

Aizawa did not look impressed by his logic.

“Be that as it may…” Nezu began.

“Don’t say you’re taking me off work study!” Izuku said quickly.

“Midoriya.” Aizawa’s tone was not encouraging. 

“No.” Izuku said stubbornly. “I _need_ this. I’ll explain more about it later when there’s not as many ears around, but trust me when I say that it’s important.”

“It would have to be something pretty impressive,” Aizawa said doubtfully.

Izuku just gave him a level stare.

“We can decide this tomorrow,” Nezu said at length. “For now, let’s make sure you get a clean bill of health and get you back to the dorms.”

As if he had summoned them, orderlies came to take Izuku for his scan. Izuku was surprised to see Ectoplasm waiting in the hall to escort him.

The process of the scan was somewhat interesting, but ultimately just made Izuku impatient. He wanted to get back to see Shouto and reassure Tosh. It took them an hour and a half to finish poking and prodding him, and another hour for the paperwork to be filled out before Izuku was allowed to leave the hospital. Nezu had arranged for a car to take them all back to the school, and Izuku was fidgety for the entire ride.

“I’ll go change and get to class,” Izuku said as the car pulled through the gates and came to a stop in front of the 1-A dorm building. 

“No you won’t,” Aizawa told him. Academics are over for the day, and you’re not cleared for hero training until we talk about what happened just before I found you. There are a lot of answers we need, and Tsukauchi has a lot of questions. If you’re feeling that good, maybe we should meet today, instead of waiting until tomorrow.”

“I just want to see my--”

Before he could finish, the front door opened, and Shouto and Hitoshi rushed out, followed by Tenya and Uraraka. Izuku didn’t wait for permission, and threw the door open and got out to meet them. Hitoshi reached him first, punching him in the arm.

“That’s for worrying me to death,” he said. 

He made it sound light and off hand, but his eyes were red and the dark smudges under them belied his cavalier attitude.

Uraraka and Tenya came next, crushing him in a hug at the same time, Tenya nearly lifting them both off of their feet. 

“We’re so glad you’re safe!” Uraraka exclaimed. “Shouto was a wreck… Oh!”

She stepped back and all but shoved Izuku toward Shouto, who hesitated for only a moment before stepping forward and wrapping his arms around Izuku. 

Shouto buried his face in Izuku’s neck, and was trembling from head to toe as he squeezed him tightly. ”I thought I’d lost you,” he said, voice muffled from his face being pressed so close. “I couldn’t stop them, and I couldn’t believe you’d be this lucky a second time.”

“Me either,” Izuku confessed, holding him equally tightly. “Some really weird stuff happened.”

“As touching as all of this is,” Aizawa said as he approached. “Why aren’t you all in class?”

“It’s lunchtime,” Hitoshi said with a shrug. “Present Mic gave us your message about him being safe, so we decided to come and see if he was back, yet.”

“We were too worried to eat!” Uraraka added. 

“I planned to have them back in time for class, again,” Tenya assured his teacher.

Aizawa checked his phone for the time and sighed. “Fine. Midoriya should rest for now. He still has a lot of questions to answer, later.”

“Can I be there?” Shouto asked quietly. 

He had stepped away from Izuku, but was still holding his hand firmly.

“No,” Aizawa answered without rancor. “Not this time. I’m sure Midoriya will fill you in on anything you need to know.”

Izuku squeezed his hand and nodded. “Most of it has to do with stuff I’m not allowed to talk about. I’ll tell you what I can later.”

“Okay,” Shouto said quietly, looking at Izuku with a slight frown. “I get it. It’s just… I was worried. It’s hard to let you out of my sight, now.”

“I’m not going anywhere right now, except to sleep,” Izuku told them all. “And then I want food.”

“There are leftovers from breakfast in the fridge,” Hitoshi told him. “No one’s had much of an appetite.”

“Thanks, guys. I’m okay,” Izuku said. “Especially now that I’ve see you all again.”

“You’re so sappy,” Hitoshi said, looking pleased.

“Yep,” Izuku agreed, lifting Shouto’s hand in his to kiss the back softly. “Guilty.”

“Let’s get back.” Tenya said, herding the three others along. “Izuku has been through an ordeal and needs rest.”

“We’ll be back after classes,” Uraraka promised as they all turned back. 

Izuku smiled and waved as they all looked over their shoulders at him, then turned and went inside under Aizawa’s watchful eye.

“I’ll be going back to school to finish classes, myself,” the teacher said. “If you need anything or anyone, use the intercom to Recovery Girl’s office. Got it?”

“I’ll be fine,” Izuku said firmly. “I’m going to go straight to sleep.”

After Aizawa left, Izuku went to the couch and stretched out, not wanting to bother with the trouble of going to his room. He didn’t even remember closing his eyes before heard someone calling his name, and the feeling of several heavy weights landing on him at once.

“Wha--_OOF_ !” 

Izuku was pinned to the couch by Mina, Sero, Kaminari, and Sato jumping on him in their jubilation at his return. Most of the rest of his classmates were gathered around the couch, smiling at him. With a laugh, Izuku flooded himself with All For One and lifted everyone as he stood up, causing them all to gasp and flail, tumbling off of him and landing on the floor or couch.

“Hey guys! I’m back! What did I miss?” Izuku said with a little grin, doing his best to convince everyone that what had happened was no big deal.

“Only all of us having a collective heart attack when we found out you’d be snatched!” Sero said, picking himself off of the floor.

“Todoroki and Bakugou saw it happen, but were too far away to do anything. Then Togata senpai said his quirk wasn’t working and everyone freaked out.” Uraraka said.

Izuku’s eyes flew to Shouto, who was looking down at his feet with a troubled expression. He crossed the room to take his boyfriend’s hand.

“That must have really scared you,” Izuku told him quietly. “I’m sorry. I should have been more alert.”

Shouto’s eyes rose and met Izuku’s with surprise. “But...I wasn’t fast enough. They took you while I was _right there_.”

“You were not right there. Uraraka said you were too far away, ” Izuku pointed out.

“And I’m faster than you, and they _still_ got away,” Bakugou added from across the room, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. “Those fuckers had some kinda way to disappear. “

This was apparently Bakugou’s way of attempting to offer some comfort or reassurance.

“See?” Izuku said, squeezing Shouto’s hand gently. “You know that Bakugou would be the first to blame you, if he thought you could’ve don’t better.”

Bakugou scowled, but didn’t comment.

“I don’t blame anyone but the guys that took me, and you shouldn’t either,” Izuku said firmly.

“Is it true that they have a way to cancel quirks?” Tsuyu asked. “That’s scary. _kero_”

Izuku nodded. “I don’t know what it was, but it seems like they got Togata senpai with it first to keep him from helping me, then they got me in the back. They must have tranqued me, too, ‘cause I was knocked out.”

“Are you sure your quirk isn’t _Trouble Magnet_?” Kaminari asked him with a smirk.

“You do have a troubling history of misfortune, Midoriya,” Yaoyorozu admitted.

“Tell me about it,” Izuku said with feeling. “Sorry for worrying everyone. Shouto and I are going to talk a little, if you don’t mind.”

Everyone stood aside as he tugged on Shouto’s hand and led him over the elevators. It was unusual for them not to take the stairs, but speed was more important at the moment, in Izuku’s mind. They rode in silence to the fifth floor and down to Shouto’s room. Once inside, Izuku sat on Shouto’s folded futon and pulled Shouto with him.

“I was scared,” Izuku told him, wrapping an arm around his boyfriend and leaning into him. 

Shouto immediately pulled Izuku close and hugged him. “Me too.”

They didn’t speak for a while, simply taking comfort in being together, and reaffirming their feelings through closeness. Izuku rested his head against Shouto’s shoulder and breathed in his scent; then the tears came. It wasn’t actual crying; tears simply welled in his eyes and slid down his cheeks in thin rivulets of wetness. His breath shuddered once at the relief of releasing some of the pent up emotions.

Shouto didn’t notice the tears at first, since his eyes were closed as he basked in the warmth of Izuku in his arms. It wasn’t until a tear fell onto his arm and he felt the shuddering breath that he became aware and opened his eyes with concern.

“What can I do?”

“You’re already doing it,” Izuku told him simply, snuggling in a little closer. “I’m just...relieved, I guess? I spent the whole time there fighting off a series of panic attacks, and now I feel safe. This is exactly what I needed.”

Todoroki seemed to feel the same, and pulled Izuku closer, until he was basically sitting in his lap. He pressed a gentle kiss to Izuku’s temple, and then rested his chin on Izuku’s curls.

“It was really hard to go back to class today, when I knew you were back here after that. I just wanted to stay and hold onto you.” Shouto told him quietly. “I was crap at training because I couldn't concentrate, and no one even said anything about it.”

“I’m sorry,” Izuku said, turning his head to place a kiss lightly on the underside of Shouto’s chin. “All I did was sleep until you got back.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Shouto said simply. “It might be awhile before I’m okay with you being out of my sight for more than a few minutes.”

Shouto yawned then, rubbing his cheek against Izuku’s fluffy hair.

“You didn’t sleep well, did you?” Izuku asked.

“I didn’t sleep at all,” came the predictable answer.

“Want to nap until dinner?” Izuku asked, sounding hopeful.

The idea of sleeping with Shouto beside him was one he was particularly keen to try out. 

“You just woke up,” Shouto pointed out, sounding doubtful.

“I didn’t sleep at all, either, other than that nap and from the drugs they gave me in the hospital. I could definitely sleep a bit more. Gran is bound to show up tonight to talk about stuff, and probably the police, too. I probably won’t get to go to bed until late.” 

Izuku might have been over selling it, but it seemed to work. Izuku was nudged off of Shouto’s lap, and they quickly laid out the futon and turned off the light. Shouto took off his uniform and slipped on a loose pair of shorts and a t-shirt before taking a spot on the futon, and patting the space beside him. Izuku was still wearing a pair of sweatpants and plain white shirt that Aizawa had tossed at him when he’d been discharged from the hospital. He had no idea where they’d come from, but he was grateful as he stretched out beside Shouto. This wasn’t about _that_ kind of intimacy, after all, but just closeness and the comfort of physical proximity. 

Shouto turned on his side and put his arm around Izuku, pulling his back up against his chest, so they could lie together comfortably on the small mattress. Izuku sighed in contentment when he felt Shouto’s arm around him, the cool side of his body in the warmth of the summer pleasant and relaxing. It shouldn’t have been surprising how quickly either of them fell asleep after they got settled. 

They only woke when there was a tapping on the door a few moments before it opened. The room was darker than before as Izuku raised his head and focussed bleary eyes on the form of Shouji, who said quietly, “Gran Torino is downstairs. He told me to come and get you.”

Shouto let out a groan of disappointment at being woken, and Izuku smiled. “You don’t have to get up,” he said, running his fingers through bi-colored hair as he sat up. “It’s probably okay for you to just sleep through the night, if you want.”

“You coming back?” Shouto grumbled into his pillow.

“Not tonight,” Izuku said regretfully. 

“Gnugfn.” Which could have meant anything.

Shouji stood at the door, waiting for Izuku, and it was hard to tell if he was smiling or not, with the mouth at the end of one of his tentacles. Izuku paused to kiss the top of Shouto’s head, then hopped to his feet and quietly left the room.

Shouji companionably joined him at the stairwell and walked down with him. 

“I’m glad you’re back safely,” he said as they descended. “We were all worried.”

“Thanks,” Izuku said. “I was worried, too. I thought maybe I was done for this time.”

They reached the bottom of the stairs and Izuku saw that most of his friends were gathered around the television, watching some sort of variety show, with a fluffy dog curled up on the floor, getting copious amounts of love an attention from many hands. Izuku barely recognised Taiyaki, since the dog Hitoshi had given Gran had grown considerably in just a few weeks. There were also three cats all curled up together on an armchair by the bookcase, and the scene was peaceful and domestic.

Gran, Tsukauchi and Aizawa were sitting at one of the tables in the dining area, so Izuku detoured toward them. 

“Midoriya! We saved you and Todoroki some dinner!” Hagakure called out from somewhere in front of the T.V.

“Thanks! I’m starving! I’ll have it later!” Izuku said, forcing a little false cheer into this tone. 

Despite the calm and cozy scene in the common room, there was business to be attended to. The sort of conversation he was about to have was not something they could do in the kitchen of the dorms. Dinner would have to wait.

The three men stood when they heard him, and Izuku was not surprised to see that both Gran and Aizawa were in their hero gear. Gran had a small bandage on his cheek, but looked otherwise fine.

“Let’s take this to my rooms,” Aizawa said, sounding a bit tired.

“How you doin’, kid?” Gran asked as they fell into step together down the hall.

“Glad to be back,” Izuku told him, “but some weird stuff happened that I need to tell you about.”

Aizawa stood back and gestured them into his space, which hadn’t changed much since the last time Izuku had been there. Gran hopped up onto the sofa, and Aizawa took the armchair, leaving Izuku to take the place beside Gran. Tsukauchi remained standing.

“From what we found out,” Gran said without preamble, “You were a bargaining chip. When you ran into Chisaki Kai on your first day of your work study, he recognised you as the kid that Shigaraki was looking for. He had his people keep a watch on you, and then grab you at a time when you’d be most off-guard.”

Izuku silently cursed himself for taking off his hood and mask when he’d encountered the little girl.

“He was going to trade you to the League in exchange for their cooperation in something big.Sources say that Shigaraki and Chisaki are vying for the position of leader of the underworld, to fill the void left when All For One died,” Tsukauchi picked up the explanation from there. “Could be he wanted to use you keep Shigaraki under his control.

“Which fits with what you said when I found you,” Aizawa added.

“Too bad we couldn’t grab Chisaki when he came for me,” Izuku said with a grimace. “Sorry I messed that up.”

“That wasn’t going to be possible, without whatever it was you did,” Aizawa told him. “I found you when I saw that couch punch a hole in the side of that building. I had already found your general location, but couldn’t pinpoint it--something was interfering with the signal; possibly someone’s quirk.”

“Signal?” Izuku had a feeling he knew where this was going.

“In your shoes,” Gran said. “Every pair you own has a small transmitter implanted. Your phone has one, but anyone with half a brain will ditch that right away. Todoroki has yours; it was found at the scene with your costume case and bag.”

“That makes sense, I guess,” Izuku said reluctantly. He wasn’t exactly keen on being tracked without his knowledge, and if the school could track him, then what if the villains could do it through the very transmitters that were supposed to keep him safe? “Are all of the students bugged?”

“You, Todoroki and Bakugou are the only ones the League has expressed an interest in,” Gran pointed out. “You’re at the highest risk.”

“Do they know?” Izuku asked.

“No.” Aizawa said, “And we don’t want you to tell them. Even the most seasoned pros can have small tells that could give something like that away, and what they don’t know can’t be coerced out of them through torture or use of quirk.”

“I’ll keep it to myself,” Izuku said with a nod. He didn’t see how it could hurt to keep it a secret.

“What I really want to know right now,” Aizawa said, ”is what you meant about a new quirk.”

“”Is One For All acting up?” Gran asked.

“Yes?” Izuku said, not quite sure if that was the truth.

He explained about his panic and anger, and the visions that overcome him as a result. They sat silently, nonjudgmental as he described everything to the best of his ability, and ended with, “So...I’m going to be getting a bunch of new quirks.”

“You spoke to Toshinori?” Gran asked, looking shaken. 

“I think I did,” Izuku confirmed, “but maybe it was a hallucination? A dream?”

“That _Black Whip_ was no hallucination, wherever it came from.” Aizawa said, rubbing his eyes tiredly. “There were these black tentacle things flying everywhere. If your quirk...your original one, that is, was inoperable, then it must have been the Black Whip that pushed the couch through the wall and did the rest of the damage.”

It occured to Izuku that his teacher had probably gotten even less sleep than anyone else. This had to be taking a toll on him. He hadn’t even thanked him for the rescue--not that Aizawa would want one.

“I wonder how far back that holder was alive,” Gran asked rhetorically. “If it was within the last few decades, there might be a registry about his quirk that could tell us something more.”

That wasn’t a bad idea at all, actually. Izuku wondered if Shimura Nana also had a registry; It was worth looking into. Something Tsukauchi was quick to volunteer to do.

“The person you saw said that anger could call out _Black Whip_ on command?” Aizawa asked, seeming to need clarification.

“That’s what he said called it out this time. I don’t know if it’s the only way to do it, though,” Izuku confirmed. “He said that it was ‘top grade’ and that it was bound to be stronger, having been growing all this time within the heart One For All, and it would be harder to control. He said I had to settle and calm my heart. How do I do that and stay angry enough to call it?”

“That’s something we’re going to have to work on,” Aizawa told him. “Maybe something Bakugou might be able to help with, actually...In the meantime, your work study is officially--”

“No.” Izuku’s tone was firm, and his expression fierce. “I need to help rescue that little girl. You said it was up to us if we wanted to do work study; my grades have been fine, and I’ve been doing everything you’ve asked of me. The fact that I need training hasn’t gotten any less important! In fact, I’d say it just got a whole lot more urgent!”

“Kid--” Gran tried to intervene. 

“No, Gran! I know you want what’s best for me while still keeping me safe, but that might not even be possible right now! Sir Nighteye might have some ideas on how to help me master this new quirk or anything else that decides to pop up.” Izuku said, his tone passionate. “I need to do this.”

“Sir Nighteye failed to meet the terms of our agreement,” Aizawa said flatly. “He admitted to not using his quirk on you today because he’d already used it to get information from one of Chisaki’s men.”

“It’s also possible that he didn’t examine your future closely enough, and skimmed further ahead to see that you were alive and well at a later point.” Gran pointed out.

“Is that supposed to be a plus or a negative for him?” Izuku asked stubbornly. “He didn’t think it was overly important to use it today, since we weren’t going to be out in the field. Otherwise he would probably have made me stay here, or wouldn’t have used it on the villain. Even if he saw my abduction, isn’t his quirk supposed to be infallible, and it would have happened anyway? If he saw that I was alive and well further down the timeline, then what else did he need to do? It supposedly wouldn't have changed the outcome.”

The two men looked at each other for a moment, but Izuku didn’t wait for them to attempt to make a pronouncement.

“He could still be really useful in learning about this new quirk, and any that might show up in the future. Was he really negligent, or is it just easier to blame him?”

Gran looked thoughtful for a moment before he finally sighed heavily. 

“How about this,” Gran offered. “Let’s suspend your Work Study for a week and then see what the fallout of Chisaki’s failure to hand you over is going to do to the relationship between him and Shigaraki? Then we’ll look into better security measures and go from there.”

“Deal,” Izuku said quickly. After a pause, where Aizawa and Gran got to their feet. “There’s one more thing…”

Both men paused and looked expectant and slightly apprehensive.

“I want to tell Shouto about One For All.” Izuku told them.

“Kid...I know you have a...a...thing with this Todoroki boy, but this is a huge responsibility to shoulder and secret to keep.”

“I know that,” Izuku said levelly. “And like Hitoshi, Shouto wouldn’t have to know that the power can be passed to another person. Just the part about how I inherited All Might’s power somehow, and it’s a big mystery. The having more quirks thing isn’t going to be able to be kept a secret for long, anyway, once I start using them. Plus, it’s not like the League doesn’t already know that All Might gave me his quirk. They could tell the whole world at any time.”

“That’s true,” Gran admitted. “There are a lot more people that know than I’d like, to be honest, but as long as the truth about it’s history is kept locked down, I haven’t been too worried. Let me think on it for a while and consult with Aizawa and Nezu.”

“That’s fair,” Izuku said.

“So you and the Todoroki kid are…” Gran asked open endedly.

“He’s my boyfriend,” Izuku confirmed. “It’s pretty recent.”

“I guess at least I don’t have to worry about you getting anyone pregnant,” Gran said with a small smile. “Don’t mean you don’t need to be responsible, though.”

“If we get that far, I’ll be sure to be careful,” Izuku said, shutting down any possible ‘talk’ that Gran might decide he needed to dole out.

“They’ll be getting sex ed in the next couple of months,” Aizawa told Gran, sounding resigned. “Thank God I don’t have to teach that one.”

Gran barked out a laugh and opened the door. On the other side, just a little way down the hallway, sat Shouto with earbuds in, and a dog in his lap. When the door opened the dog scrambled to greet Gran as if they’d been separated for days, and Shouto got to his feet and pulled the buds from his ears.

Shouto’s hair was messy from his nap, and he still looked tired, but happy to see Izuku emerge. 

“Everything okay?” he asked quietly.

“For now, at least,” Izuku said with an encouraging smile.

Izuku turned to Gran and said, “Gran, I don’t know if you’ve ever really formally met Todoroki Shouto.”

Shouto’s expression was one of mild panic as he hastily gave a polite bow. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Izuku smiled at how cute it was, and Tsukauchi smothered a chuckle behind his hand, turning it into a little cough..

“Calm down, kid; I ain’t gonna bite your head off for being Izuku’s boyfriend,” Gran said, holding his dog in his arms and looking equally mortified for a moment. “Good to meet you. Take care of him, as much as he’ll let you. Call me if he does anything stupid.”

“Yes sir,” Shouto muttered, looking sheepish and slightly amused.

“I’m heading out,” Gran said, looking at Izuku sternly. “Be responsible.”

Izuku rolled his eyes and walked him and the detective to the door.

When Gran had left and Aizawa had retreated to his rooms, Izuku headed for the kitchen. He hadn’t eaten since lunchtime the day before and he was starving.

“They said they saved us some dinner,” Izuku said. “Have you eaten?”

“I was waiting for you,” Shouto admitted, going to the sink to wash his hands. 

They found leftovers in the refrigerator and made short work of the beef bowls, then they made more rice and ate until they were full.

“I need to bathe,” Izuku said as he washed their dishes. “And I still feel like I could sleep more.”

“Sleep,” Shouto agreed.

“You could have stayed in bed,” Izuku pointed out affectionately.

“I couldn’t,” Shouto countered. “I wasn’t kidding about not being ready to let you out of my sight for more than a few minutes. Plus, I wanted to give your phone back. I found it on the ground after they took you.”

“Sho--you need your sleep. I’m going to be fine. I’m going to bathe, and go to bed. That’s it.”

Shouto sighed and nodded. “Okay.”

Izuku let Shouto walk him to his room to gather his things, then back to the first floor bathroom before kissing him softly and sending him to bed. It was cute to see him being clingy, but it wasn’t healthy for either of them if it lasted for too long. 

After a good scrubbing (sadly, the tub had been drained for night), Izuku dried his hair, brushed his teeth and headed for his room. When he got there, he couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled up in his chest at the sight of Shouto lying on the bed, reading a book (was that manga?) and acting as though everything was normal. His school uniform was even hanging on the hook by the closet, ready to be worn.

“I promised Iida _and_ Aizawa _and_ Gran that we’d follow the rules and be responsible,” Izuku pointed out as he shrugged off his robe and hung it behind the door. “_And_ I’m a class rep, so I should be setting a good example.”

“Isn’t it your job as class rep to help your classmates with problems?” Shouto asked with a raised eyebrow.

“You could have gone to Iida’s room,” Izuku countered with a smirk.

“I could,” Shouto agreed, “but I doubt his bed is big enough for three. Since my problem is being separated from you, you’d have to come along. I’m just cutting out the middleman. Literally.”

“You make a valid and compelling argument.”

Izuku resigned himself to the fact that he was risking a serious scolding (at the very least) if they were caught, but shrugged and shut off the main light. There was a dim light from the small reading lamp on his bedside table. They weren’t going to be doing anything to violate the spirit of the rules, really, which were likely in place to keep students from being promiscuous or something ridiculous. As if students wouldn’t be doing whatever they wanted during daylight hours, instead.

Izuku got into bed and pulled a light blanket over himself, settling into Shouto. Shouto immediately abandoned his book and spooned around Izuku as the light was turned off. 

“Thank you,” Shouto murmured into his fluffy curls.

“Just don’t let it become a habit,” Izuku said softly, reaching up a hand to squeeze Shouto’s gently.

If Izuku was honest with himself, he had the best night’s sleep he’d enjoyed in a long time. He and Shouto woke refreshed, and when they met Tenya outside for their morning run, he didn’t say anything to indicate he was aware that they’d broken the rules.


	33. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izuku tells everyone about his new quirk, and the heroes gather to discuss Overhaul.

“So let me get this straight,” Bakugou said, slouched in his seat and staring across a coffee table at Aizawa and Nezu, then at Izuku, who was seated beside him. “You make me go to anger management and mindful thinking training and shit, and now you’re asking me to teach this...this…_absolute Deku_ how to be angry and calm at the same time?”

Even Izuku had to admit that it was a cruel irony that no one had seen coming.

“You know that theory you had about my quirk?” Izuku asked calmly. 

“It’s not a theory. I know what I know.” Bakugou sneered.

“Yes, well…” Izuku had gone over this with Aizawa and Nezu earlier in the day. “It seems like All For One did something to me when I was taken from the training camp, and it got triggered when I got kidnapped this time. “

Saying ‘this time’ in reference to a kidnapping was just… wrong.

“What Midoriya-kun is trying to say,” Nezu interjected, “is that he seems to have developed a new, additional quirk that is fueled, at least in part, by anger. Anger without control is dangerous, and this quirk seems rather volatile.”

For a moment, Izuku could have sworn he could hear Bakugou grinding his teeth. It was an understandable reaction after everything they’d been through in the past.

“What’s it do?” Bakugou asked, this time looking directly at Izuku.

“It’s called _Black Whip_ and it’s pretty much...like it sounds? This black stuff comes from my hands in ropes or whips and strikes out at everything. It kind of went out of control and wrecked a bunch of stuff, but ideally, I should be able to use it strike at stuff from a distance at the very least. I won’t know what else it can do until I can manage to call it out again.”

“And you need to be angry to call it up?” Bakugou asked.

“It seems that being angry is one way of triggering it,” Izuku confirmed. “I don’t know if that’s the only way.”

“Then it’s not so different from my quirk, I guess. Being angry is kind of my default, but I think that being mad makes me sweat more, and that gives me more firepower.” 

Bakugou seemed to be taking this seriously, at least, and not making accusations. Izuku still had to tell Hitoshi and Shouto. Even if it was decided that Shouto wouldn’t be told about One For All, he would learn about Black Whip eventually; it made sense to tell him now and have his help.

“That...makes a lot of sense,” Izuku said. He had hypothesized about it before in his hero analysis notebooks, but it was interesting to have it at least partially confirmed. 

“The question is whether or not you think you could help Midoriya with this, without you two ending up trying to kill each other,” Aizawa said.

“Midoriya-kun has enough to be angry about,” Nezu said bluntly. “This isn’t about you making him angry, but learning to use what’s already there to call out his new power and learn to control it.”

“Right. Why me? There are plenty of people around here that could help him with that,” Bakugou asked, sounding genuinely curious. “It’s not like we’re friends, or whatever.”

That was an understatement, if Izuku had ever heard one.

“We thought it would amount to a win/win situation. You would get to spar together and help each other in areas the other is weak in,” Nezu explained. “As you have already so helpfully pointed out, anger is your default, and you’re working on overcoming that to become a better hero. Midoriya could benefit from that kind of experience. Midoriya is strong at interacting with others and being tactful and personable; a skill that you need to work on. You’re an excellent tactician, and might be able to point out ways to use this new quirk that he hasn’t thought of.”

“Long story short,” Aizawa said, getting to the point, “We feel that it’s in both of your best interest to start partnering you two more during training, and pushing you both to start cooperating more. The past needs to stay in the past. I know both of you have pretty packed schedules, but I’d like to see you spend some time training one on one at least a couple of times a week, even if it’s just during class.”

Izuku wasn’t thrilled with the idea, but could see the merit in it.He didn’t want to rock the boat, where his training was concerned. He feared that if he showed any reluctance in what they thought was best, they might see it as rebellion and move to take away his work study.

Bakugou had agreed surprisingly easily. The blow to his ego from being beaten so quickly by Deku, then failing to get his provisional license had possibly made him more receptive. That, or it was a balm on his bruised ego to help train someone else, when his own skills had let him down. 

Izuku (and Shouto) went to pay a visit to Togata after classes on Friday, relieved to find him well and as energetic as always. He’d apologized repeatedly for not protecting Izuku, and was being harder on himself than anyone else probably could or would have been. It was a relief to know that Togata also felt that it was important for Izuku to continue in his work studies, and that (according to Sir Nighteye) no one blamed him for not sensing the attack.

When Izuku finally got a chance to talk to Hitoshi and Shouto privately, they went to the roof of their dorm so they wouldn’t be overheard easily.

Someone had finally dragged a few chairs up to the roof, since it got so much use as a quiet spot to hang out. There was even a handy _Do Not Disturb_ magnetic sign that anyone could stick on the door, if they wanted privacy (though this was not really enforceable). They used the sign now, and sat down in a little triangle arrangement so they could all talk face to face.

“So why did you call me up here?” Hitoshi asked cheerfully, once they were all settled. “Isn’t this your favorite make out spot?”

“Tosh,” Izuku said with a mild warning in his voice, “don’t make me get the duct tape.”

Shouto raised his eyebrows at that one, but said nothing. 

“Fine, fine,” Hitoshi said, holding up his hands in surrender. “What’s up, Zu?”

“Something happened when the yakuza took me,” he said, keeping his voice even, “Something weird, that might go back to the first time I was kidnapped.”

“What do you mean? Did they do something to you? I thought you said they just tied you up held on to you!” Hitoshi demanded worriedly.

“Tell us what happened,” Shouto said quietly, his posture stiff and this expression apprehensive.

“These guys said they were going to hand me over to Shigaraki, and I kind of panicked and… my quirk wasn’t working yet, and I needed a way to escape, and that triggered sort of another quirk, possibly, maybe?”

Izuku paused there, expecting some reaction, but both Shouto and Hitoshi just stared at him blankly. He waited for a beat, but they seemed to be waiting for him to elaborate.

“These black whip-like things exploded out of my hands and arms, and completely trashed the place. It knocked out the guys who were holding me captive, threw a couch through a wall, and it really, really hurt,” Izuku said, doing his best to explain without including his vision of All Might or the other previous holders of One For All. “I couldn’t turn it off, and I got the feeling that it was my anger or panic or something that caused it to trigger. It wasn’t until Eraserhead got there and used his quirk on me that it turned off.”

“You...you have another quirk?” Hitoshi asked incredulously. 

“It seems like it,” Izuku confirmed.

“You said that this might go back to the first time you were kidnapped,” Shouto said, putting the clues together. “You think that All For One used his quirk on you in reverse? Instead of taking your quirk, he _gave_ you one?”

Izuku shrugged. “I can only think that it had to originate with All For One.”

That much was not a lie. Everything he knew about this whole mess originated with All For One.

“You’ve had a quirk you didn’t know about lying dormant for weeks?” Hitoshi asked, still looking shocked. “Dude.”

“Is there any way of knowing if there are others?” Shouto asked pragmatically. “If your panic triggered this one, perhaps there are triggers for others that you aren’t aware of.”

“I have no idea,” Izuku said. “I guess it’s possible. Aizawa wants me to see if I can learn to use it.”

“That makes sense, I guess,” Hitoshi said, “You wouldn’t want something like that going out of control when you’re already freaking out.”

“I don’t like the idea of deliberately sending you into a panic, just to force a quirk to trigger. Surely there’s something besides psychological torment that can make it manifest.” Shouto said with a frown. 

“Aizawa and Nezu already have a sort of plan for that,” Izuku said, ducking his head sheepishly. “But you’re not gonna like it.”

They both stared at him apprehensively.

“They want me to train with Bakugou. They think that his constant anger, and his efforts to control it might help me learn how to be emotional, and in control at the same time.”

“Bullshit!” Hitoshi said immediately. “I don’t trust him to help you tie your shoes!”

“That does seem reckless,” Shouto agreed more mildly. “How do _you_ feel about it?”

Hitoshi got up to pace behind his chair, clearly agitated and angry. He still held something of a grudge against Bakugou for his part in bullying Izuku in the past.

“I’m not thrilled at the idea,” Izuku admitted, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, “But I have to admit that the idea has merit. If there’s anyone who knows about strong, overwhelming anger, it’s Bakugou. He’s going to anger management as part of his training, and seems to be making progress.”

“Then why give him a license to piss you off to the point of panic,” Hitoshi demanded, throwing himself back into his chair.

“That’s not what they want to do,” Izuku said calmly. “In fact, they already told him that he wasn’t allowed to deliberately bait me or bully me. I’m not sure how it’s going to work yet, but I’m willing to at least give it a try.”

Hitoshi folded his arms over his chest and growled out something unintelligible under his breath.

“Tosh,” Izuku soothed. “You know I can kick his ass, if I need to. I’m not a little kid anymore.”

“That’s true enough,” Hitoshi admitted grudgingly.

“Are they pulling you off of work study?” Shouto asked, letting the topic of Bakugou rest for the moment.

“They tried to,” Izuku said with a pout. “But I argued well enough that they’re just making me take a week off until they can make sure it can be safe, and see how my escape affected the League and the guys who wanted to hand me over to them.”

“I don’t know, man, it seems like it’s a bad idea,” Hitoshi said.

“The reason I was allowed to do it in the first place hasn’t changed,” Izuku pointed out. “I still need the training and experience that working in the field can teach me. The sooner the better.”

“That’s true,” Shouto conceded. “I just don’t like it, because I’m worried for you.”

“Same,” Hitoshi said with a sigh.

Izuku was happy that his friends seemed to accept that he had another quirk (and the possibility of others manifesting) without too much fuss. He had kind of expected them to freak out more, but was glad that they hadn’t, and were instead being supportive.

“So for now, you’re going to be training with Bakugou, trying to trigger this new quirk? Am I allowed to be there?” Hitoshi asked.

“I was hoping you’d ask,” Izuku said with a nod. “If I do manage to trigger my new quirk and Aizawa isn’t around to erase it for some reason, you’re the next best option to help turn it off if I can’t control it.”

“If I hadn’t failed the provisional license exam, I could be here for you more,” Shouto said morosely. 

“No, you’d be snapped up for a work study by either your father or some other big name hero agency,” Izuku corrected. “Don’t stress yourself out about things you can’t control.”

“That’s the pot calling the kettle black,” Hitoshi said, rolling his eyes.

“Anyway, I have a training room booked for tomorrow to work with Aizawa for just after lunch, to see if I can make anything happen. I’m seeing my counselor just before that,” Izuku said. 

“I wanna join that training,” Hitoshi said. “I want to see this new quirk for myself. Maybe I could just brainwash you into using it.”

Izuku was intrigued by that idea. It was worth exploring, for sure.

“I have my supplemental classes tomorrow,” Shouto said, with a slight frown. 

“Seems like we’ll all be busy in one way or another this weekend,” Izuku lamented. 

“Well, if we’re done here, I’ll let you two have some lovey-dovey time before curfew,” Hitoshi said, getting to his feet. “I wanna have Koda explain to Stompers that my mattress isn’t a scratching post.”

He left Izuku and Shouto on the roof, leaving the Do Not Disturb sign in place with a smirk.

The next morning, Izuku and Shouto went for their now customary morning run before Shouto had to leave for supplementary training. Izuku felt a lurch when he saw Togata also leaving to catch the train to his work study, but told himself that he would be joining him next week, so it wasn’t anything to feel upset about.

He had his visit with his counselor, which took longer than usual in light of recent events, but left him feeling better for having talked it out. Izuku often wondered how much of what he shared really worried her, or if this was all ‘normal’ for her. She did have other clients with traumatic pasts, including a hero or two. He was grateful his mother had found her so early on, and that he’d been able to keep seeing her all this time.

By the time he met with Aizawa and Hitoshi in the training room, he was feeling more centered and calm than he had in a while. They were all wearing their hero gear for the protections built into them that might be necessary, should Black Whip make an appearance.

The room itself was basically empty, though there were closets along the wall that could yield equipment, if it was needed. Izuku wasn’t sure what to expect from this training, and looked to his teacher for guidance.

“Okay, I’ve had a talk with Sir Nighteye,” Aizawa said once the door was secure. “I’d already been helping him monitor some things related to the case you’re working on, so I have an idea of why you’re so keen on continuing your work study.”

Izuku nodded, not adding anything, since he wasn’t sure how much Hitoshi was allowed to be privy to.

Hitoshi looked between the two, but didn’t pry.

“First things first,” Aizawa said patiently. “Let’s have you try to call out the Black Whip. Think back to how you felt when it first activated, but don’t let yourself be wrapped up in the emotion of it.”

Izuku nodded and held his hands out in front of him, willing the tendrils of oily, smoke-like blackness to emerge from his body. He cast his mind back to when he was lying helpless on the floor of the sterile apartment, waiting for Chisaki to arrive to deliver him to Shigaraki.

“Breathe, Zu,” Hitoshi told him from where he stood, leaning on his quarterstaff. 

Izuku drew a deep breath, and was surprised to find that he’d been holding it to begin with.

“Give me a minute,” he murmured, focusing on his breathing in addition to everything else.

“Take your time,” Aizawa said. “This isn’t going to happen over night.”

Izuku strained his memory, thinking of the brief vision of All Might he’d seen, and the original owner of Black Whip. He thought of everything that had led him to finding All Might, dying in that alley, and receiving One for All. He thought of All For One, stealing the quirks of others and giving them to those monstrous Nomu. It was as if a film was playing in his head on fast forward of all of the injustices people had suffered at the hands of one evil man. Then he thought of Eri. He thought of the bandages on her arms and legs, and story Chisaki had told them about medical tests. About him saying she was his daughter.

“Careful, now,” Aizawa murmured quietly,

Izuku looked at his hands and saw whisps of black rising from his palms, writhing shaplessly in the air in front of him. It was strangely alien, and he felt a sort of disconnect as he wondered if such a tool would be able to withstand a quirk like Overhaul or Shigaraki’s disintegration type of quirk. Could this be used to strike at them from a distance?

“Whoa,” Hitoshi breathed as the tendrils rose higher and began to curl in on themselves like snakes.

“Okay,” Izuku said, trying to remain dispassionate. The feel of the whisps was like a feather being drawn across his palms and fingers, and not painful at all. “Now what?”

There was sweat on his brow from the effort he was expending, his breathing was becoming labored, and his arms ached. It was not the burning pain from before, and he wondered absently if it was because he was maintaining some semblance of control, instead of having it burst out of him in destructive waves.

“Try shutting it off,” Aizawa instructed.

That was easier said than done. Izuku attempted to find a sort of switch, like when he turned One For All on or off, but Black Whip resisted. Then he tried to imagine reeling it in like fishing wire, and it seemed to calm down a little, but didn’t completely dissipate. The best success he had was imaging a vacuum in his veins, sucking the blackness back into his hands; it appeared to shrink in size for a moment. Then, all at once, it _surged_ and thick ropes of blackness shot out several meters, whipping at the walls and seriously denting one of the closet doors. Both Eraserhead and Hitoshi were forced to duck multiple times to avoid being hit.

“It hurts!” Izuku cried out, making sure to keep his back to his teacher and his best friend. 

A moment later, the whips vanished as if they had never been, and Izuku was left to fall to his knees, gasping for breath and looking around wildly. His eye landed on Aizawa, whose eyes were glowing red, and his hair lifting around his face.

“That was nuts!” Hitoshi said, stepping over to Izuku and kneeling beside him. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m okay,” he said. “That took me by surprise.”

“So you can bring it out...to an extent,” Aizawa said thoughtfully. “Any idea what made it go out of control?”

“Not really,” Izuku said, pinching his bottom lip as he thought about it, “I was just trying to reel it in,”

“Maybe it just wants to be free after being dormant for a while?” Hitoshi said. “It almost seems to have a mind of its own.”

“Whatever happened, it was exhausting. All I really did was stand here for a few minutes, and I feel like I ran a marathon without my quirk,” Izuku lamented.

“We’ve been in here for almost an hour,” Hitoshi said, looking at his phone.

“Seriously?” Izuku asked in wonder.

“Yep,” Hitoshi confirmed.

“Should I try it again? Maybe see if Hitoshi can make me shut it off on my own?” Izuku asked, looking to his teacher.

“Not today,” Aizawa said, leaning back his head to apply eye drops. “This room is booked up, and I’ll have to get a bot in here to fix the closet. I want you to go see Recovery Girl and have her make sure that the pain you felt didn’t cause any damage.”

Hitoshi got to his feet and gave Izuku a hand up, and they both nodded. Izuku noted that there was no residual pain left, now that Black Whip was contained.

“Midoriya,” Aizawa said as he moved toward the door. “Don’t try to use it again without checking with me first. We don’t want any accidents. We’ll try to get time to involve Bakugou this week.”

“Got it,” Izuku said with a nod. 

The last thing he wanted was to hurt someone unintentionally.

They moved through the school at a leisurely pace. Even though it was a Saturday afternoon, there were still students here and there getting in extra training, doing class projects and getting caught up on studies. Hioshi seemed in no hurry, and since Izuku knew that Shouto wouldn’t be back for another couple of hours, he didn’t have anything pressing to do, either. 

“We haven’t had time to really hang out lately, have we?” Izuku asked as they made their way toward Recovery Girl’s office. “Things have gotten really busy.”

“It’s a good busy, though,” Hitoshi said with an easy smile. “It’s really hard to believe that we only started at Yuuei, like, four months ago, and we already have provisional Licenses. It’s crazy!”

“It seems like a lot longer than that, doesn’t it?” Izuku mused. “So much has happened, it doesn’t seem like it should all fit into such a short timeframe.”

“Our class is certainly setting an unheard of precedent.” Hitoshi agreed. “The entire way the school runs and how the students live has completely changed because of us!”

“Because of me,” Izuku said with a furrowed brow. “At least, in part.”

“Only indirectly,” Hitoshi avered. “You can’t control the fact that insane megalomaniacs seem to search you out like a moth does a flame. It seems like the changes have pretty much all been for the better, anyway. They probably should have happened a long time ago, and what happened to you was just the catalyst.”

“I guess,” Izuku said with a shrug.

There was no changing it, at any rate. They were going to have to make the best of it.

“Oh ho!” came a loud voice as Hitoshi and Izuku entered Recovery Girl’s domain. “The trouble magnet and his faithful sidekick! Injured _again_ Small Might?”

“Monoma,” Hitoshi said, half in greeting and half as a groan.

“Hush, you,” Recovery girl told the overbearing blond from 1-B. “Hold still while I reseat this.”

Izuku looked on curiously as the old woman took what appeared to be a molar in her fingers and pressed it into a gap at the back of Monoma’s mouth. Her gloved hand slotted the tooth into place and she gave him a smacking kiss on the forehead before letting go. The purpling on his cheeks that had been there a moment ago faded in front of their eyes.

“Be careful with it for the next couple of days; soft foods only, and stop provoking people,” she told Monoma sternly. 

“Let me guess, someone punched you in the face and knocked out your tooth,” Hitoshi said dryly.

It didn’t take a detective to figure it out, but Monoma merely waved that away and hopped to his feet. 

“One of the hazards of not being afraid to tell the truth, no matter the cost,” he said airily.

“Have you ever heard of tact?” Recovery Girl countered, removing her gloves and shoo-ing him out of the way. “Or keeping silent when not asked for your opinion?”

Izuku smirked at that, but had a thought. “Monoma, your quirk allows you to copy other people’s quirks, doesn’t it?”

“Within reason, yes,” he said, dusting off the front of his spotless jacket and pretending he hadn’t heard the scolding a moment before.

“And your quirk gives you a sort of intuitive knowledge on how to use the borrowed quirk?” Izuku confirmed?

“Yes?” Monoma seemed mildly curious about where this line of questioning was going.

“Don’t you even think about it, young man!” Recovery Girl interrupted, stepping forward to swat at Izuku’s arm in agitation. “I don’t need to have to try to reconstruct this young man’s arms and legs or something of the sort! Your quirk is far too strong for him to attempt to duplicate!”

“Aw, c’mon!” Hitoshi said in a wheedling tone, with an evil grin taking over his face. “You could at least let him _try_ it!”

“Hush, you!” she glowered, smacking Hitoshi’s leg with her walking stick.

“What is going on?” Monoma asked in bewilderment. “Are you intimating that I am too weak to handle Midoriya’s quirk?”

“That’s _exactly_ what I’m saying,” Recovery Girl stated bluntly. “If I hear you’ve tried it against my explicit instruction not to, I’ll see you expelled from this school!”

It wasn’t often that the diminutive healer flexed this hard on the students, and it was more intimidating than it ought to have been, coming from someone so elderly and diminished in size.

“Fine,” Monoma said, taking a step back and acting offended. “As if I even need to! Strength Enhancing quirks are a dime a dozen!”

“It was just a thought, Recovery Girl,” Izuku assured her, holding his hands up in appeasement. “I wouldn’t have done it without Eraserhead’s approval!”

She sniffed at him as if she wasn’t quite convinced, but let the matter drop. She saw Monoma to the door then turned to the boys with a suspicious look.

“Aizawa sent me to get looked at,” Izuku told her. “I don’t know if they told you about my new…”

“Yes, they did,” she said, saving him the trouble of explanation. “Highly irregular! If Toshinori was here (rest his soul) I’d kick his ass.”

Hitoshi burst out laughing to hear the old woman swearing, and Izuku cracked a smile.

“I think I might, too,” Izuku muttered. “But I used Black Whip today--at least until it decided to use me right back, and Aizawa had to turn it off for me.”

Recovery Girl switched to professional mode and gave Izuku’s arms a through examination, took his blood pressure and pulse and peppered him with a dozen questions. Once she was convinced that there was no immediate injury, she gave him a handful of gummy candies and let him go back to the dormitory with the same warnings Aizawa had already issued.

Hitoshi and Izuku sent the rest of the afternoon making a game of sparring on the lawn in front of the dormitory, having fun, like they used to do before being accepted at Yuuei. Tokoyami and Iida came outside to watch and shout out tips, and then a couple of students from 1-B wandered over, and it became an informal tag team match, where no one used quirks. By the time Bakugou and Shouto walked up the lane, there were fifteen students participating in a hastily made up game that made each person tag out after one minute, so the combatants were constantly changing. It was fun, and just the sort of informal, inclusive activity they needed to unwind and get to know each other a little better outside of classes.

It wasn’t until Midoriya tagged Kendo and stepped back out of the ring that he noticed Shouto watching from nearby.

“Hey!” Izuku’s face lit up as he jogged over to where Shouto was looking tired, but pleased. “Okaeri!”

“Tadaima.” Shouto answered, then gestured to the group. “Is this some kind of fight club?”

“Sort of? It started out with Tosh and I messing around, then kind of grew from there. How was your training?” Izuku explained.

“It was interesting,” Shouto said, watching as Bakugou demanded to be allowed to ‘play’ with everyone else. “I’m learning more than I expected.”

“Come in and tell me about it,” Izuku said, turning toward the dorm. “I’ll make you a snack.”

The next day was much the same, with Izuku and Hitoshi meeting Aizawa for training. Izuku was able to call out _Black Whip_ on his own, but it was weak. It didn’t flare up when he tried to shut it off, but it didn’t stop on it’s own, either. Hitoshi used his brainwashing to make Izuku turn it off, and everyone was relieved to know that it worked. 

Interestingly, Hitoshi was able to brainwash Izuku into bringing the whips out at a fair strength, and direct him to use them to pick up a pommel horse across the room. The movements lacked elegance, but had plenty of strength. The whips seemed to be prehensile in nature, and able to wrap around people or objects and hold them fast. Once Hitoshi made him draw the whips back in, he released Izuku from his hold and showed him a video of what had happened while he’d been under mind control.

“How unfair is it that Tosh has better control of my new quirk than I do?” Izuku complained to Aizawa.

“It wasn’t your new quirk he was controlling, it was _you_,” Aizawa pointed out dryly. “Which means you have what it takes inside of you, already.”

The rest of their practice left Izuku feeling like a rung out sponge, but satisfied that he was making some progress. Even better news was that he was cleared to go back to his Work Study on Wednesday, as usual. It wasn’t until that evening that things became more concerning for everyone.

“Holy shit, Kirishima! What the hell?” Sero exclaimed as he paused in setting the table for dinner.

All heads turned to see the redhead come into the room with Aizawa, who was looking grim.

“Got into my first real one on one skirmish with a villain,” Kirishima said, rubbing the back of his head self-consciously. 

The movement only made the bandages on his arm more obvious, along with the scratches on his face.

“I’ve never seen anyone put a real scratch on you when you used your quirk!” Kaminari said in wonder. “That must have been a wicked fight!”

“It was,” Kirishima said. “The guy took a quirk boosting drug. Amajiki senpai got hit with one of those quirk-suppressing bullets, too, just like Togata did last week. He has to stay in the hospital overnight for observation.”

Izuku felt as if an electric current was running through him, and was surprised when Todoroki quietly said, “Your hand.”

As if scalded, Izuku loosened his grip on Shouto’s hand with an apologetic wince. “Sorry, Sho.”

“I got hit, too,” Kirishima admitted bashfully, “But I was hardened up, so it didn’t pierce my skin.”

Izuku was thankful that his own hero costume had some protection from punctures and blades, but wasn’t sure if it could stop a bullet with a needle on it. He made a mental note to check the specs of his suit and make sure.

“It’s getting more dangerous out there,” Aizawa said needlessly. “Those of you who have been allowed to leave campus for non essential outings are on a temporary lockdown until the supplier of this drug is traced and taken down. All other off-campus activities will require much more stringent security measures. I’ll be giving you more specific details when I knew what they are.”

Everyone nodded, more than a little spooked by the idea that two of the school’s strongest students had now had their quirks taken from them, even temporarily.

The mood for the rest of the evening was somber, with everyone lost in their own thoughts during dinner. Shouto was especially clingy in their time together before lights out, sitting even closer to Izuku than normal, and holding his hand constantly.

Izuku, while concerned about the quirk modifying drugs in the hands of criminals, was still eager to get back to his work study. Eri was still in the hands of Chisaki Kai, and that was unacceptable. He tried to reassure Shouto as best he could, while doing the same for himself. 

The next couple of nights left Izuku experiencing nightmares about Eri and what might be happening to her. He was sure she was scared; did she believe that they’d forgotten about her? Was she still looking for ways to run away and find help? Knowing what he did about Chisaki’s quirk, what exactly was he doing with her? On Wednesday morning, he was awoken in the night by a loud banging, and Aoyama and Tokoyami standing in his doorway staring at him in concern.

Apparently his dream had triggered _Black Whip_ and it had wrecked his room, waking his friends in the rooms on his floor. After assuring them that it had been a nightmare that had made his quirk act up, they grudgingly went back to bed, leaving him to try to do the same. He’d spent the time cleaning up, instead and avoiding thinking about the implications of not controlling his quirk as he slept.

“You didn’t sleep well,” Shouto said as they laced up their shoes the next morning.

“You do seem to have dark circles under your eyes,” Tenya told him gently. “Perhaps you should try to sleep a little more.”

“Yeah, Deku,” Ochako agreed, sitting on the grass to stretch. “You’re going back to your work study today; you should be as well rested as you can!”

“It’s okay, everyone,” Izuku said, pasting a cheerful smile on his face. “I just got woken up in the middle of the night, and couldn’t get back to sleep. I’ll be fine.”

He pointedly began stretching, hoping they’d drop it. One of the downsides to having such good friends was that they tended to be overprotective, sometimes.

“So,” Tenya asked after they’d been jogging long enough to be warmed up. “What was it that woke you? Should I be having a talk with anyone about noise levels or disturbing the peace?”

“Thanks, Tenya, but you’d end up having to talk to me,” Izuku confessed. “My new quirk reacted to a nightmare I was having and made some racket in my room. It ended up waking poor Aoyama and Tokoyami --I’ll have to apologize properly later.”

“Your new quirk did what, now?” Uraraka asked with raised eyebrows.

She knew about _Black Whip_, but wasn’t privy to many details about it.

Izuku sighed, and concentrated on keeping his pace as he explained. “It seems like it reacts to my emotions; especially anger and fear. My nightmare made it lash out, I guess. It tossed my desk chair around and knocked a few things off my shelves.”

Shouto had remained silent until this point, but now he moved closer to Izuku. “Should I start staying in your room, so I could wake you if it happens again?”

“No,” Izuku told him kindly.

“I should think not!” Tenya answered at almost the same time. “If anything, it should be Shinso-kun who could help him best.”

“Little blunt there, Iida,” Uraraka murmured, noting the slight frown on Shouto’s face.

“I’m sorry,” Tenya said in a softer tone. “I simply meant that Shinso has already trained with Izuku, and we know he can successfully force him to turn it off. I understand how worried you must be, but there is more of a chance that you would be injured than of you helping it stop.”

“He’s right, Sho. As nice as it would be, I don’t want to risk it hurting you when I’m not awake enough to know what’s going on. I still need to learn to turn it on and off by myself before I could risk it.”

Shouto nodded, seeiming mollified, though not particularly happy.

Soon their run became intense enough that talking was a chore, so they finished in relative silence. Back at the dorms everyone showered and got dressed for the day, then sat down for a simple breakfast.

Hitoshi was sitting on his left and looked exhausted. Izuku suspected that he’d been awake all night, training. It had been strange that Hitoshi hadn’t emerged to check on him when his quirk had woken their other two classmates, now that he thought of it. On his right, Shouto was moping slightly over his rice, knowing that Izuku was going to be gone to the Nighteye Agency, instead of in class. It seemed that, having been introduced to actual affection and physical touch, Shouto had become a little spoiled in Izuku’s care. Izuku was all to happy to supply both for him, but they still had responsibilities. Across from him, Uraraka seemed to be checking her messages on her phone, looking slightly confused.

When breakfast was over, Tenya started nagging the others to make sure to take their dishes to the dishwasher. School didn’t start for another thirty minutes, but he liked to have everyone head over together at least fifteen minutes early. Even though many complained about it, no one seemed inclined to go to battle with him over it, and more often than not, they were all ready on time.

Just as Izuku as about to leave to meet Togata at the front gate, there was a change of plans. Aizawa came out of his rooms and called everyone going to work study that day, Tsuyu, Uraraka, Kirishima, Izuku, and surprisingly--Hitoshi all came forward.

“Because of recent security measures, a car has been provided to transport everyone, today,”

“Sensei… we all travel in different directions for our--” Uraraka began.

“Not today. I trust you’ve heard from your Agencies that the meeting place has changed? You’ll all be heading there, for the time being. That’s all I’m at liberty to say until we arrive.” Aizawa’s voice was firm, and his expression didn’t leave any doubt that questions would not be appreciated at the moment.

They followed their teacher to the driveway in front of the dormitory, to find Amajiki there looking timid beside Togata and Hado. They were all standing beside a large van with dark windows.

“Everyone in,” Aizawa said without preamble. 

There were three rows of bench seats behind the driver and passenger seats, and they all clambored in, Izuku climbing into the seat furthest back, where he was joined by Hitoshi. The middle seat was claimed by the girls. With Amajiki and Togata taking the front bench. To give Togata’s wide frame plenty of room, Kirishima chose to sit in the passenger seat across from Aizawa, who was driving.

“Are you okay now, senpai?” Kirishima asked, turning to look back at Amajiki.

Amajiki quailed slightly, as if trying to hide behind Togata’s bulk. “I’m fine, now. Just embarrassed that my kohai had to cover for me.”

While Kirishima brightened and tried to bring Amajiki out of his shell, Izuku turned to Hitoshi. 

“I didn’t expect you to be coming along,” he said quietly. 

There may have been a _tiny_ bit of accusation in his tone.

“Underground heroes don’t really advertize what they’re up to. S’not like I’m allowed to talk about it any more than you are.” 

Hitoshi smothered a yawn as he said this, triggering Izuku to yawn as well.

“I suppose that’s fair,” Izuku admitted. “You’ve been going out at night?”

“Yeah,” Hitoshi said around another yawn. “Mostly just surveillance.”

“Get some sleep while you can,” Izuku advised. “We can talk later.”

Hitoshi didn’t need a second urging and was soon fast asleep against Izuku’s shoulder with Uraraka grinning and snapping pictures with her phone.

By the time the van stopped, Hitoshi had his head pillowed on Izuku’s lap, and Izuku was dozing with his mouth open and a line of drool creeping down his chin. Uraraka and Tsuyu had taken a couple of dozen pictures each, and Aizawa’s left eye was twitching.

“Everyone out,” he said in his normal volume.

Despite the fact that their teacher had not raised his voice in the slightest, both Izuku and Hitoshi were instantly awake and alert, startling everyone else.

“This is my agency,” Izuku said immediately upon waking.

“This is where we’re all meeting today. Sir Nighteye has asked us all to be here,” Aizawa said as they climbed out of the van.

It was not lost on Izuku that the entire group surrounded him, seemingly casually, as they walked the short distance to the entrance of the building.

Centipeder greeted them all as they arrived and directed them to a conference room on the second floor, where they found a number of other heroes waiting.

“Gran! You’re here?” Izuku said in surprise.

“Yep. Now take a seat so we can get started,” Gran said gruffly. Even though he seemed all business, his paused on his way past to pat Izuku on the back.

The heroes present were all in their costumes, while the work study students remained in their school uniforms. It didn’t seem like they would all be participating in a large scale operation, at least.

“Thank you all for attending,” Nighteye said as he entered the room, carrying a stack of files and moving to the head of the large table.

Everyone settled into chairs to listen to what he had to say. Izuku marveled at how many people were assembled, and mentally categorized everyone and their quirks as they were introduced.

Lock Hero: Rock Lock, who could lock any nonliving thing he's touched in place, stopping it in a fixed location in space. It didn’t work on really large things, and could be overcome with enough force, but it was a great talent. He seemed to wear a perpetual scowl, and bore earrings that looked like padlocks.

Dragon Hero: RyuuKyuu, who could transform into a dragon and was the mentor for Hado, Uraraka and Tusyu was there, as well. She was tough as nails in a fight, and always kept her composure. She could even fly in her dragon form!

BMI Hero: Fat Gum, who Amajiki and Kirishima was working with towered over everyone. He used his immense body fat to basically smother his opponents into giving up. Valiant and hard working, as well as caring and nurturing.

There were also minor, local heroes that Izuku itched to know more about, all sitting around the enormous table waiting to hear what Sir Nighteye had to share.

“Thanks to the information and surveillance many of you have supplied in the past week, the investigation into the Shie Hassaikai’s movements has progressed well. This meeting is basically for information sharing and trying to map out what they’re really plotting.” 

Sir Nighteye had everyone’s attention as he spoke. Izuku wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, since he’d been out of the loop for a week, but it seemed that Nighteye had enlisted the help of a lot of people to solve this case.

“I’ll explain step by step,” Sir continued. “Shie Hassaikai are a yakuza group that have come under the leadership of Chisaki Kai, also known as Overhaul. It is unclear what became of their former leader. We believe that they are at the center of an extremely dangerous drug operation that is distributing both quirk enhancing drugs and, more alarmingly, quirk nullification drugs. Both Togata Mirio and Amajiki Tamaki have been the victim of the latter, and while the effect was temporary, it’s only a matter of time before they may advance their formula to create something permanent.”

A murmur of unease rose up around the table from a few of the heroes who weren’t aware that this was a possibility. They held their tongues though, and waited for further explanation.

From there, Centipeder gave a report on his investigations into the yakuza group and it’s accumulation of funds through highly unusual interactions with other villain groups, bringing them to the recent interaction between Chisaki Kai and Bubagaiwara Jin, the villain known as ‘Twice.’

“They were especially wary of being followed, and I was unable to keep tailing them without detection. Fortunately, I was able to connect with the police from there, and they were later able to confirm that some sort of skirmish took place, resulting in a lot of bloodshed. The mess left behind was...grisly.”

“So that’s why Tsukauchi and I were called into this meeting?” Gran asked. “It involves the Villain Alliance?”

At Centipeder’s nod, Gran gave Izuku a _look_ that was hard to interpret. They had already discussed this between them, so something more must have happened recently to have Gran on edge.

“Where is Tsukauchi, anyway?” Rock Lock asked.

“Following up on a couple of witness reports,” Gran said shortly.

“And what’s up with these brats?” Rock Lock demanded, looking at the Yuuei students with disdain. “They’re just students! We can’t have this kind of conversation with them around. We’re wasting too much time as it is.”

“Enough outta you!” Fat Gum said loudly, springing to his feet and gesturing to Kirishina and Amajiki. “These two are important witnesses! We cut off those scum’s supply routes and ended those kinds of dealings in the past and smashed those groups to pieces, but now they’re reforming! Tamaki was the latest to get shot during Red Riot’s debut battle! That’s unforgivable!”

“Tamaki, Are you sure you’re okay?” Togata asked Amajiki, who had been quailing under the attention that Fat Gum was drawing to him.

“I just needed to sleep it off. Look at this splendid hoof!” Amajiki assured him, holding up a cow’s foreleg where his arm should be.

“Ah! Right! We had that left over beef bowl for breakfast!” Togata remarked.

Meanwhile, Izuku was squirming in his seat, torn between paying attention to the real reason for the meeting and wanting to examine the cow hoof. Was it just a cow hoof, or was it identical to the cow that had been turned into beef? Hitoshi pinched him under the table to signal that this was not the time to geek out over quirks, and he settled down.

“Well, if it wears off, that’s not so bad,” Rock Lock said with a tiny shrug.

“It’s not like my quirk,” Eraserhead said to the group. “My erasure doesn’t attack the quirk itself, I simply interrupt access to the quirk factor that each person with a quirk has. It doesn’t cause any damage to the quirk itself. This drug is different.”

“Both Togata and Amajiki were hit with the same type of drug, and after analysis of Tamaki’s blood, it was found that his quirk factor had taken actual damage. He was able to recover over time, because his body was able to heal itself,” Fat Gum said. “No other anomalies were found. It _only_ attacked the quirk factor.”

Sir Nighteye then told them. “And there’s worse news. Red Riot was also hit by a quirk cancelling bullet, but the nature of his quirk made the needle unable to penetrate to deliver the drug into his system. Analysis of that bullet has brought something very disturbing to light.”

Izuku swallowed hard, unable to pinpoint the sudden feeling of dread starting to make his throat tighten and his gut churn. 

“The bullet contained human blood and cells.”

“Human?” Uraraka gasped.

“That’s so outlandish that it shouldn’t be able to be true,” Tsuyu commented.

“Fuuuuuck,” Hitoshi breathed, only loud enough for Izuku to hear.

“In other words, the effect is derived from a person or a quirk,” Ryuukyuu said grimly. “A quirk to cancel other quirks.”

Izuku felt sick. Looking down the table at Togata told him that he wasn’t the only one. They both knew where those cells and blood had come from. A terrified little girl who’d burst out of an alley and begged them for help. Her arms and legs had been bandaged, and Chisaki Kai had told them that she’d had to undergo ‘medical testing’ recently. 

Izuku could feel the rage building inside of him, and then Hitoshi asked him, “Are you all right?” 

“I…” 

Izuku blinked several times and looked at Hitoshi. It was clear that a small amount of time had passed by the sudden change in conversation around the table.

“Did you just use your quirk on me?” Izuku asked as quietly as he could.

“Black Whip was starting to activate,” Hitoshi told him, leaning close so they wouldn’t be overheard. “There were black smoky wisps starting to show. I just made you shut it off. You didn’t notice?”

Izuku shook his head minutely. He hadn’t. He’d been so wrapped up in his rage at having left Eri in such monstrous hands, and what had been done to her, and what was probably-- no definitely --still being done to her that he’d almost lost control. He took a deep breath and gave Hitoshi a grateful look. Luckily, no one else seemed to notice.

“Look,” said one of the local heroes sitting at the table. “You lost me a while back; I’m not following much of this. What does this have to do with the Eightfold Cleansers?

“The Eightfold what?” Kirishima asked.

“The Eightfold Cleansers are the top men in the Shie Hassaikai group,” Fat Gum explained. “They’re also sometimes called the Eight Bullets. The web of distribution for the drugs is actually pretty complicated. It’s being sold wholesale to a lot of different organizations and individuals. Now with the information collected by all of us, we can pinpoint the source.”

“There is no evidence yet that the Cleansers are actually dealing the drugs, but there has been documented contact between them and the middleman organizations,” Nighteye added.

“And that’s it?” the confused hero asked.

“Ryuukyuu and her team cleaned up a clash between a pair of villain groups the other day. One of those groups was part of a middleman group,” Nighteye said.

“One of the villains had taken one of the boosters and gigantified, but could only hold it for a short time.” Ryuukyuu confirmed. “Probably inferior goods. I’m told that if they’d been imported from Africa, the effect could’ve lasted _days_.”

“I guess that of all of the organized crime that’s been on the rise lately, the Eightfold Cleansers have been responsible for most of it, if it helps to look at it in that light,” another hero supplied. “That’s still not a solid link, though. Do we have anything else that ties it all together?”

“The head of the Shie Haasaikai is named Chisaki Kai, or Overhaul, as he brands himself these days. His quirk is one that can disassemble and reassemble any target,” Nighteye supplied flatly. “A quirk like that with bullets that can destroy quirks?”

Nighteye paused there to let them all process what he was saying.

“Chisaki has a small girl that he claimed was his daughter when Midoriya and Togata encountered them two weeks ago. We’ve found no records to support the notion that he has a daughter. The girl’s arms and legs were wrapped in a lot of bandages.

“It can’t be,” Ryuukyuu said sadly. “Do do anything so inhumane…”

“What do you expect in a world full of superhumans?” Gran asked gruffly, sounding thoroughly disgusted. “Any son of a bitch with an evil plan can do whatever he wants.”

“Wait…” Kirishima said in confusion. “What exactly are we talking about?”

Amajiki was at a loss for words. Izuku was busy balling his fists and letting Hitoshi ground him with a hand on his shoulder. Togata looked close to tears.

“See? I told you we didn’t need any damn kids around. Slow on the uptake, much?” Rock Lock shot at Kirishima. “What they’re saying is that they’re probably making bullets out that little girl’s body.”

Everyone at the table cringed slightly, and there was a moment of silence after the blunt statement as they all imagined the horror of it.

“We don’t know if they’re trafficking them for profit or not,” Sir said into the silence. “At their current stage of development, from what we can tell from the sample we examined, they’re not very close to completion. Be that as it may, they could possibly be using them as a testing phase or as samples to garner allies. While there’s no proof, say they managed to gather comrades all over the country and amass the funds. What if they finished the product to take the quirks themselves and eradicate them completely? The number of dark, dark ideas that come to mind don’t bear thinking about.”

Fat Gum was fairly vibrating with anger. “Just imaginin’ it makes me wanna explode with rage! We gotta go search their hideout and get that girl!”

“So, you’re saying that if those two had just taken her into protective custody two weeks ago, all of this could have been avoided?” Rock Lock asked caustically. 

Izuku felt as if he’d been punched in the gut, and folded in on himself at the invisible blow. Hitoshi squeezed his shoulder, while muttering, “That guy’s a real asshole.”

“I take responsibility for that,” Nighteye said calmly. “So I’d appreciate it if didn’t put the blame on them. They did their best to rescue her, but didn’t know the circumstances under which she was being held. Midoriya stuck out his neck and tried to protect her then and there, and Mirio did as he was trained to do and looked ahead at the possible consequences, then worked to secure her safety at a later juncture. They’re the ones that are the most frustrated right now.”

“I won’t fail her again,” Izuku stated loudly, fierce determination in every line of his body.

“We’ll protect her!” Togata and Izuku said in tandem.

“Yes,” Sir Nighteye said with equal fervor. “That is our next goal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I'll probably be bringing this fic to a close in the next few chapters, but I'll have to see if it lets me! I hope you're enjoying it so far!


	34. Rescue Heroes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thing finally fall into place, and Izuku finally gets the chance to join the team to rescue Eri.

“_Tch._ That’s great and all,” Rock Lock said with a shrug, “Assuming she’s still alive, and all. It’s clear that the girl is likely the core of Chisaki’s plan, and she was spotted by these two junior heroes. If you were him, would just bring her back to your main hideout? I know I wouldn’t.”

“He’s got a valid point, Nighteye,” Ryuukyuu said, looking troubled.”Do we have any proof as to where she even is?”

“Indeed,” Sir Nighteye said, pushing his glasses up on his nose and rising to his feet. “That is the most pressing issue at the moment. If we fail to end this decisively, we won’t be given another chance. Which leads us to the organizations that Shie Hassakai has contacted, as well as their verified properties. Through our investigation, we’ve compiled an extensive list.”

At this point, Sir Nighteye rolled out maps and information. A map of japan appeared on a screen behind him, with red dots marking areas all over the country.

“I’ll be asking each of you to check out groups and locations on your own. We need to narrow down the list,” he said.

“Ah! So that’s why so many of us minor heroes are here, too!” one of the men at the table said to his companion, “Take a look. There’s a connection with each hero’s home territory and the list of locations. It looks like we were chosen because of our familiarity with the neighborhoods. Our presence wouldn’t be out of place, there.”

“YOU’RE BEING MIGHTY CAUTIOUS, BEING A FORMER SIDEKICK OF ALL MIGHT’S,” Fat Gum Bellowed in frustration. “WHILE WE’RE TRYING TO FIGURE EVERYTHING OUT, ERI’S CRYING OUT THERE SOMEWHERE!”

“We can’t do things the way All Might would have. He’s gone. We have to rely on what we do have, and that’s information and rationality. We have to do everything in our power to raise the odds of successfully rescuing her.”

“Don’t get yourself all worked up,” Gran told Fat Gum. “If we go big and screw it up, they’ll get away, and it’ll stoke their fires even higher. They might even flee the country to set up shop elsewhere and take the girl with them.”

Fat Gum didn’t look happy, but at least stopped shouting. 

“It’s like when Stain was arrested, and it ended up being good PR for the League of Villains. Distributing quirk-cancelling bullets to small-time street thugs might have the same effect - gaining a loyal following for the yakuza,” Gran said.

“But if we don’t act, we’re as good as dead in the water!” Fat Gum argued.

Others began to murmur and argue at that point, until Eraserhead raised his hand. “May I ask a question?”

Everyone quieted down again as Nighteye nodded.

“I’ve got a decent idea of how your quirk works,” Eraserhead said, “So I don’t understand why you don’t just use it on one of us to see how this all works out. If you want to be rational, it seems like that would be a logical first step.”

Izuku looked to Sir Nighteye, to see how he would answer. He was aware that his boss didn’t like to rely on his quirk as much as he could, but wasn’t exactly clear on why. 

“I can’t do that,” Sir Nighteye said flatly.

When everyone continued to wait for elaboration on that statement, he sighed and straightened up to explain.

“My quirk has limitations. Once activated, it requires a twenty-four hour cool-down period. “In other words, I can only look at one hour of a person’s life, per day. The images appear in my mind like panels in a film reel; after using it, I can play it back like video footage of a person’s life, if it makes to think of it that way. Also, the entirety of what I see is limited in scope; I see it was from the perspective of someone close to the person in question. That means I can only see what that person sees, and have only limited glimpses of their surroundings..”

“That sounds like more than enough information to work with,” Eraserhead commented. “We could learn plenty. So--why can’t you do it?”

Sir Nighteye looked, in a word, haunted. “Well, for one, I very well might see, in the near future, the death of a person. Perhaps a cruel and merciless one. What then?”

Izuku had the distinct impression that he was speaking from experience, somehow. Perhaps he’d foreseen All Might’s demise? Maybe he hadn’t but was glad of it, since there would have been nothing he could do about it?

“I’ve trained my quirk to maximize the accuracy of every move I make,” Nighteye pressed. “I use it to all but assure a victory in battle. It’s not meant to be recklessly used to view situations with so many uncertainties!”

“Seeing if we’re going to _DIE_ seems pretty damn useful!” Rock Lock argued, fist pounding the table. “Then we could make a plan to stay alive!”

“I’m not a fortune teller!” Sir Nighteye said shortly. “There’s no guarantee that the fate I see can be avoided! I’ve tried before, numerous times! I’ve _never been wrong_!”

“C’mon, Nighteye!” Rock Lock persisted. “Cut the bullshit! Use your quirk on me, and I’ll show you! I’ll avoid whatever future you see!”

“I CAN’T.” He hung his head as he said it, his tone ringing with finality.

No one spoke for several moments.

“We should focus on the task at hand. We have a little girl to find,” Ryuukyuu said quietly. “That’s what matters most.

Sir Nighteye snapped to life again, all business. He slammed his hands on the table and stood tall. “Our goal is to confirm the girl’s location and take measures to save her! Once we’re as sure as we can be, we’ll bring this to a swift resolution!”

He bowed, then. 

“I thank you all for your help.”

When the meeting broke up, the Yuuei students went to sit in a small waiting area that served as a breakroom for the agency. Hanging their heads, Izuku and Togata told their friends the details behind their encounter with Eri and Overhaul.

“So that’s how it is,” Izuku finished, his anger under control for the moment.

“Wow,” Kirishima murmured, “That must be really painful.”

“Deku-kun…” Uraraka reached over to put a hand on his arm.

“Well, that explains the fake smile you’ve been putting on, lately,” Hitoshi said glumly.

“And _you_,” Kirishima said, pointing at Hitoshi. “I had no idea you were doing a work study! It’s with Aizawa sensei, isn’t it?”

“It’s Eraserhead when we’re in the field,” said the man in question as he approached their table. “No one knew. That’s part of being an underground hero. Holding an all night vigil, are we?”

If Izuku looked even a fraction as miserable as he felt, it would explain his teacher’s comment.

“Anyway, I was planning on talking to all of you about ending your works studies today…”

“WHAT? NOW, OF ALL TIMES?” Kirishima asked, jumping to his feet.

Izuku felt his heart thump once in his chest, then kick into overdrive, rabbiting into a stressful rhythm as he glared defiantly at his teacher.

“You heard about how the League of Villains might be involved in this. That makes this a whole different ball game,” Aizawa said calmly. “But then, if I cut you off now, it’s all but guaranteed that you’ll just jump into action anyway.”

He met Izuku’s glare when he said this, and Izuku blushed, but didn’t deny it.

What I’m left with is the only rational option...to watch over you while we do this. We’ll make sure we do this by the book. _Got that, problem child?”_

Hitoshi smirked when Eraserhead punched Izuku lightly on the arm.

The others breathed a sigh of relief when they heard they would be allowed to continue their work. Now that they knew about Eri, and the burden that Togata and Izuku had been bearing alone all this time, they wanted nothing more than to help.

“Hey, Mirio…” Amajiki said to Togata. “Keep your head up, man. I’ve never seen you so down, before.”

“Yeah, Togata!” Hado piped in, ever her cheerful self, “I understand how your feel...you have regrets and you’re feeling down, but that’s just how it is sometimes!”

“Yeah. You’re right,” Togata said, trying his best to put on a determined face.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Eraserhead offered kindly, “When you reached out to help Eri, even though you failed, I’m sure it gave her some hope. So pick yourself up.”

“Yes sir!” Izuku told him, getting to his feet. He had to believe that, or he’d fall into a dark place.

“With that said, the Big Three here are on par with the pros...probably even better than a lot of them, but you four,” Aizawa said, turning to his own students. “Will have greatly reduced roles in all of this. I know I don’t have to ask Midoriya, but you other three didn’t actually volunteer for all of this. If you want out, now is the time to say so. No one will think less of you.”

“After hearing about what they did to Eri, there’s no way I’m backing down,” Uraraka declared firmly.

“I want to help, too. _kero_ No one should get away with hurting a little girl like that,” Asui said.

“I couldn’t call myself a man if I didn’t everything I could to help save that girl!” Kirishima said, slamming his hardened knuckles together.

“Fine. I had to make sure you’re all good. As long as you understand that the goal of this mission is to rescue Eri, and not turn it into anything else. Nighteye says that the League of Villains isn’t really involved in this, but if that changes and it looks like there’s a chance you’d end up fighting them, that’s the end of the road for you. I’ll pull you out of the mission.”

Until the heroes were able to pinpoint Eri’s location, the work study students were on standby. It was difficult to know time was passing without action being taken to save Eri, but Izuku kept himself almost frantically busy while he waited. Everyone was pumped about the mission, but it was weighing heavily on Izuku.

Shouto was obviously concerned about him, but didn’t press for details when Izuku said he couldn’t talk about it. Izuku assured him that just his calm presence was a huge help, but his tension was mounting.

During classes, it was obvious that the work study kids were making huge improvements, all of them motivated to do their best.

“I know you learned some big secret out there!” Bakugou shouted at Kirishima, who was ahead of the pack in his group scaling a tall stone cliff. “You better spill!”

“Sorry! No can do!” Kirisihima called back, without the usual joking tone.

With no one he was really able to talk to about the mission - not even his therapist - Izuku’s spirit was on the edge of breaking.

“You’re not eating?” Shouto asked quietly in the cafeteria at lunchtime. The worry in his tone was evident.

“Is everything okay?” Tenya asked kindly, also full of concern.

“Oh! Yeah! I was just about to start. Just, you know, a lot on my mind,” Izuku said with false cheer.

“You’ve been seeming more and more on edge since your work study started. I know you can’t really talk about it, but...we’re here, if you need us,” Tenya told him. “We’re your friends.”

That was the tipping point for Izuku, and tears welled in his eyes.

“Huh? Hey!” Tenya said with failing arms. 

“No, Sorry. I’m fine.” Izuku wiped roughly at his tears and picked up his bowl to shovel some rice in his mouth. “Heroes don’t cry.”

“No,” Shouto corrected softly, putting a light hand on Izuku’s back. “Even heroes must cry sometimes, I think.”

Izuku felt some tension drain out of him, and was touched by his friends’ concern and offers for food from their own plates in an effort to comfort him. Just knowing who much they cared was enough to give him the strength he needed.

Two nights later, Hitoshi, Izuku, Uraraka, Asui and Kirishima all met in the common room in their night clothes to confirm with each other. Each of them had gotten a text telling them that a date had been set, and they were ready to move to rescue Eri.

It was thanks to Nighteye’s quick thinking, he was able to use his quirk on one of Chisaki’s men when he’d gone out to buy a toy that was obviously meant for a young girl. He’d watched the henchman travel straight to the house that they’d already suspected was Shie Hassaikai’s stronghold. From there the man had navigated through twisted corridors to Eri’s room, where Nighteye had seen the girl, still wrapped in bandages, surrounded by mounds of unopened toys.

They now knew not only where she was being held, but how to find her exact location. Izuku had memorized the route that Nigheye had laid out for them, based on what he’d seen with his quirk. The hard part would be extracting her.

The night before the raid, Izuku printed out some documents from the internet, filled them out, and took them to Principal Nezu.

“In the event of my death,” Nezu read from the front of the envelope. “Midoriya…”

“Don’t worry, sir. I don’t have a death wish or anything! It’s just...if life has taught me anything, it’s that people can die unexpectedly. There are a lot of legal matters that will need to be dealt with, since I own a house and stuff, so I wanted to make sure that my wishes are written down, just in case.”

“I see,” Nezu said with a tinge of pity in his voice. “Very forward thinking.”

Izuku simply nodded and gave a slight bow. “I’m praying you never have to open that, but if I could please leave it in your care for the time being? I didn’t have time to contact my lawyer.”

“Of course, young man. I expect you’ll be back to pick this up from me by the end of the week,” Nezu said firmly.

“Yes, sir!” Izuku said just as firmly.

That evening, Izuku spent time alone with Shouto. All he could really tell him was that he had a mission the next day, and that he needed a distraction. Shouto had been all too happy to oblige, and they had cuddled and kept each other distracted until lights out.

The next day found all of the work study students and heroes in position, ready to strike a decisive blow to the Eightfold Cleansers and rescue Eri.

They met at the police station at 8:00 AM and Izuku marveled at the rows of officers in riot gear, complete with shields, standing at the ready. Almost two dozen heroes were standing by. They distributed a list of know Shie Hassaikai members and their quirks, and were told to try to memorize them. Izuku didn’t know if the names mattered as much as the quirks they’d be going up against, so he concentrated on those. Hitoshi was also reading over the list, while Aizawa stood nearby, keeping watch over his students.

“Hey,” Izuku said suddenly, looking around. “I don’t see Gran anywhere.”

“He wasn’t able to come,” Nighteye told him.

“Tsukauchi got word of a big development in the League of Villains case, so they went to check it out. He really wanted to be here, but said we could handle it,” said the officer in charge..

Izuku nodded, somewhat glad that Gran would be left out of this mission. Even though his guardian was more than capable, it was hard not to worry about him.

“Deku,” Eraserhead said, stepping up to him as everyone prepared to leave. “You remember why I’m sticking with the Nighteye Agency group, right?”

“Yes, sir,” Izuku said with a nod. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll be focused on doing my part to help save Eri.”

“Heroes,” the officer in charge addressed them, “These guys are bound to put up a fight. If they try anything funny, we’re counting on you to handle it.”

Izuku observed Fat Gum coaxing Amajiki--no--Suneater to eat some swordfish, and Ryuukyuu telling her group not to let their guard down.

The officer directed them all to do what they had to do, and then everyone moved to the location of Chisaki’s lair. Within half an hour of meeting at the station, they were ready to go.

“Remember, once I serve the warrant, things are going to start moving. Let’s end this quickly.”

There was a caustic comment by Rock Lock, and some answering commentary, but Izuku was staying focused on the gate. Before the officer could even press the bell on the intercom, a voice on the other side of the gate could be heard.

“We yakuza have always lurked in the shadows, hidden away. Don’t expect us to flinch just because some cops and heroes show up at our door!”

A moment later, the gates crashed outward, tossing policement into the air like ragdolls.

“What’s going on?” A behemoth of a man in a plague mask had smashed the gate and charged at the officers with huge fists to match is outrageous size and physique. “It’s a little early for so many visitors!”

Izuku was forcibly reminded of the nomu and muscular, rolled into one person. 

“Help them!” Eraserhead shouted at him, already sending his capture weapon after the men tumbling through the air.

Izuku didn’t stop to think, he just leaped into the air and snagged one of the officers, landing back on the street before gently setting them down. Aizawa had managed to get one of the other two men back down safely, while Hitoshi used his own capture weapon to get the last one.

“Are you alright?” Izuku asked, scanning the officers for any evident injures.

“Yeah,” the officer he’d caught said breathlessly. “Thanks. Hurry up and get back in there!”

The rampaging giant was still causing havoc until Ryuukyuu changed to her dragon form and pinned him down. 

“The Ryuukyuu Agency group will hand this, the rest of you go!

Izuku didn’t need telling twice. He and Kirishima called out encouragement to Uraraka and Tsuyu as they ran past. Izuku ran ahead with the others, keeping pace as more yakuza came at them, trying to delay their advance further into the compound. 

“No sign of the man in charge, of course,” one of the policemen observed.

“These guys are fodder to him, and even though they know that, they still have a fierce sense of loyalty,” Aizawa said.

“Chisaki is using this distraction to cut and run,” another officer said. “We need to hurry.”

“Leaving his underlings to fight while he runs away? What a bunch of crap!” Kirishima shouted angrily. “That ain’t manly at all!”

“You said it!” Fat Gum agreed.

Izuku could see from their interactions that Kirishima and Fat Gum were a good match for each other’s personalities. 

They needed to get further, faster, to where they were keeping Eri. When a man came at him with a baseball bat, Izuku swatted him away like a fly, sending him crashing into a wall as he continued on. NIghteye was using his weapon of choice: hyper-density seals that weighed five kilograms each, flinging them at an astonishing speed, to knock his targets flat. Izuky had no idea where he stored them, but they were certainly effective.

Nighteye finally came to a small alcove in the wall that had a vase with flowers on it, and stopped. 

“This is the entrance to the network of hallways that will lead us to the girl,” Nighteye said. “There's a mechanism that opens the way down; I just have to press these planks in the right order…”

A moment later the wall slid away, but before they could advance, three more armed men lurched out of the opening at them, shouting, “Like hell we’re letting you get past us!”

Eraserhead activated his quirk, and Centipeder took point. He called for Bubble Girl to take one of the attackers, while he wrapped the two others in his coils. Bubble Girl used her bubbles to blind the third man before hitting him over the back of the head to knock him out.

“We’ll make sure these guys don’t follow,” Bubble Girl said, sitting on the back of the man she was holding onto. “Go one ahead, and we’ll be right behind you!”

Not waiting any longer, Nighteye and the police chief advanced through the passage and everyone else followed them down a flight of stairs. They were brought up short after only a few meters past the bottom landing, by a solid wall.

“There’s no way through?” the chief asked in disbelief.

“What the deal, Nighteye?” Rock Lock demanded angrily.

“I’ll take a look!” Lemillion said, removing his helmet.

“Wait! If he goes through there, he’d gonna end up butt naked!” Red Riot said.

“He’s fine,” Sun Eater told him calmly. “His costume is comprised of special fibers made from his own hair. It’ll permeate with him.”

Izuku would have to add that to his notes, later. As fascinating at that little tidbit was, he was more worried about what might wait on the other side of that wall.

A moment later, Lemillion returned with news. 

“This wall is the only thing in our way, but it’s a thick one!”

“Chisaki must have used his quirk to make it,” Rock Lock surmised.

“How underhanded!” Fat Gum snarled.

“We’ve come too far to let this stop us!” Deku declared with determination.

“Damn right!” Red Riot agreed. 

Both of them stepped forward, Red Riot hardening, while Deku went full-cowl. The wall crumbled under their combined hits. Red Gun Turret and Shoot Style made short work of the wall, and seemed to impress even the jaded Rock Lock.

Bubble Girl and Centipeder caught up with them at that point, but as they were about to proceed, the hallway seemed to turn into rubber and contort itself into something between a funhouse and an Escher painting. 

“The hallway is twisting a morphing!” Bubble Girl said, stating the obvious, as though hoping it was a figment of her imagination.

“This ain’t Chisaki’s work,” the chief said. “This is probably Irinaka. But the scope of what he’s doing his off the charts. His quirk lets him posses and control inanimate objects from the inside, but he’s supposedly limited to things smaller than a fridge.”

“Looks like he gave himself a _boost_,” Fat Gum observed, pointing to a figure on the ground. 

The puppet with a plague mask that the villain normally possessed was lying discarded on the floor, beside an empty syringe.

“He must have taken possession of the basement walls to turn it into a living maze!” Fat Gum concluded.

“I was prepared for some obstacles, but the whole basement?” Fat Gum complained. “That’s gotta be taking a toll on the guy’s stamina! Can you cancel it out, Eraser?”

“Not unless he can catch sight of the guy’s body,” Mind Bender told him, saving Eraserhead from having to break his concentration to answer. He was gripping his own capture weapon, scanning wildly for anything to grab onto.

“If the passageway keeps shifting like this, we’ll never catch up to Chisaki! We’ll be doomed, and that little girl will be forced to live a life of torture, and how can we save her if we’re all totally DOOMED?” Sun Eater said, clearly spiralling into an anxiety attack.

“Tamaki!” Lemillion said sternly. “This isn’t like you! Remember who you are! You’re _Sun Eater_! Plus, I can make it through! We can make it as long as we know the way to the target!”

He was already running forward, phasing through any sudden shifts in the landscape.

“Mirio!” Tamaki called in alarm.

“Lemillion!” Nighteye shouted at the same time as Deku cried out, “SENPAI!”

“It’s a race against the clock, and we all know it! I can’t let this slow us down! I’ll see you on the other side!”

He disappeared through a wall without hesitation and was gone.

While they were all still processing Lemillion’s departure, the floor literally dropped out underneath them, dropping everyone into a room below. The ceiling above sealed them off from returning to where they had been before.

“We only fell about one story,” Eraserhead said. “The fall wasn’t meant to kill us.”

Everyone got cautiously to their feet and looked around.

“We’re just getting farther and farther from our goal! They punked us real good!” Rock Lock exclaimed in frustration.

“Do you ever stop griping?” Hitoshi asked in the most pleasant of tones as he stood with Izuku’s help.

His answer went unuttered, though. Instead, three figures wearing masks came into the light. Each of them had an unsettling appearance, especially the one with a hood that resembled a scarecrow with ragged eye and mouth holes.

“Well, look at what we have here! State authorized goons, paying us a visit!” one of the men said tauntingly.

“Life’s just full of surprises, isn’t it?” said another.

Izuku shuddered at the first voice. He recognized it from his time in captivity. “That’s Hojo. One of the men who grabbed me last week.”

“Oh, hey, kid! I owe you an ass-beating! Step right on up, why dontcha?” Hojo said, cracking his knuckles loudly.

It was only Mind Bender and Red Riot’s hands landing firmly on his shoulders that kept him from launching forward in answer. The best he could do was bare his teeth and wait for the opportunity (and permission) to fight.

“If they want a fight, let’s give ‘em one!” Fat Gum said with a growl. “We’ll show them what pros can do!”

“You pros should go on ahead,” Sun Eater declared with certainty in his tone. “Your power is going to be needed later. These guys are just trying to slow you all down! I can handle these three on my own.”

It seemed Sun Eater had found reserves of courage and determination after seeing Lemillionn rush ahead.

“What the heck, man? We should do this together!” Red Riot shouted at his senpai.

“Yeaaaaah! Listen to the kid! Work together, why dontcha?” the one with plague mask taunted. “More pigs to the slaughter!”

“That’s Setsuno!” The chief said in warning. Nobody pull your gun on him!”

Izuku wracked his brain, trying to remember the quirk that went with the name. “Larceny,” he muttered to himself. 

The moment the police pulled guns, his quirk would allow him to take them.

“Aw, you’ve heard of me!” Setsuno mocked. “Guess the secret’s out! Whatever! I’m still gonna go wild on all of ya!”

He brandished a long katana and held out his hand as if to activate his quirk, but nothing happened. 

“That won’t work,” Eraserhead said, reaching for his capture weapon. “Drop the blade.”

“He’s got a quirk cancelling quirk like Eri’s degradation. I’ve heard of him before,” Hojo said as he pulled a gun.

All of the officers present pulled their weapons, too, now that Eraserhead was keeping them from being ‘lifted’ by the villain. 

“Blades and bullets will just sink into me,” Fat Gum said, stepping forward as a human shield. “Come quietly if ya don’t wanna suffer!”

“Threats like that only work on people who value life!” Setsuno countered, advancing.

“We can use our weapons as long as Eraserhead has your quirk cancelled! Give up, now!” the chief ordered.

It was a tense standoff, and Izuku was trying to keep track of where everyone was, so that he wouldn’t hurt any of the good guys when the fight inevitably broke out.

Without any warning there was suddenly a gigantic clam shoving between Setsuno and Hojo, and a moment later, octopus tentacles sprang from Sun Eater’s hands where his fingers should have been, and grew to enormous size as they wrapped around each of Chisaki’s men.

“_Larceny_: Setsuno,” Sun Eaters said as he held them tightly coiled. “_Crystalize_: Hojo. _Food_: Tabe.”

The tentacles of the other hand crushed the guns and katana that the men had been armed with.

“I’ll take you all on!” Sun Eater declared, throwing the three men into the nearest wall with a resounding _crack_.

“I get to eat a lot of takoyaki at the Fat Agency,” Sun Eater told them, “So my octopus proficiency is maxed out. You all staying to fight these guys won’t help rescue the girl! It’d just be playing into their hands! Get going and leave this to me!”

“But--” Red Riot tried to argue while Setsuno laughed menacingly.

“There’s not a moment to spare! Go!” Sun Eater shouted. “FAT GUM! I CAN HANDLE THESE THREE ON MY OWN!”

Fat Gum only considered for a moment before pointing to a door on the far wall. “Let go through here!”

“Fat!” Red Riot exclaimed in dismay.

“Hey now, not so fast!” Setsuno said, attempting to use his quirk again.

Eraserhead was too quick, however, and used his own first. His arm shot out and he’d knocked Tabe unconscious before anyone could even register what he was doing.

“I’ll knock them out while I still have eyes on them,” Eraserhead said.

“Go! Now!” Sun Eater shouted, slamming Setsuno and Hojo into the wall again. “Go help Mirio! I just know he’s going to take things too far and need saving!”

That was all Izuku needed to hear. He ran through the door with the others, racing to try to catch up with Chisaki and Lemillion before it was too late. Hitoshi was at his heels, but looked conflicted. 

“I could’ve helped him,:” he muttered.

“Fat! What’s the deal? Are we really leaving him alone back there?” Red Riot asked as they ran.

“He’s your guy, so it’s your call,” Rock Lock said, “but it seems like a bad idea.”

“Tamaki is one of the most capable heroes here. He just lacks spirit and his perfectionism crushes him. Still...he clawed his way to the top to become one of Yuuei’s Big Three! He's normally a timid one, so if he says he can handle it, then I have to trust him. He can do it!”

“I hope senpai is okay,” Red Riot grumbled. “I’m still worried about him!”

Izuku agreed. He hadn’t had a lot of interaction with Amajiki, but what he knew of him hadn’t left the impression of a fierce warrior.

“WHEN A GUY SAYS HE’S GOT YOUR BACK, A REAL MAN’S JUST GOTTA BELIEVE!” Fat Gum scolded.

“YEAH! HE’S GONNA BE FINE!” Red Riot said suddenly, seeming more pumped up and confident.

Izuku looked at him in shock, “You sure do go with the flow, don’t you?”

“FAT’S RIGHT! I’M WORRIED, BUT HE CAN DO IT! WE CAN’T WASTE A SINGLE SECOND OF TIME HE’S BUYING FOR US!”

It wasn’t long before they came to a set of stairs.

“A way back up,” Sir Nighteye said with relief.

They all hurried upwared, but Eraserhead seemed uneasy. “Odd.”

Izuku looked at him with a sidelong, questioning glance. “What’s up?”

“No sign of the guy manipulating the basement.”

“Oh yeah! It’s not all twisty here,” Izuku realized. 

“That must mean that he doesn’t have complete awareness or control of the whole area,” Aizawa said. 

A moment after those words had left his mouth, part of the basement wall formed something of a hand and smacked Eraserhead from the side, forming a wall and separating him from the rest of the group. Then, while Izuku was still processing that, another attack came swiftly that took out Fat Gum and Red Riot. 

Deku used his iron soles to kick down the walls, but the passage behind them was empty. THe villain must have opened up more passages to a lower level, like before.

The police were cut off from the group next, and it became obvious that they’d been led into a trap and were being picked off, one by one.

Rock Lock was hit next, and was thrown so violently against the wall that he briefly blacked out. He was obviously in no shape to continue when he came to. “Go! He shouted to the others. Go!”

Within moments, the only ones left were Mind Bender, Deku and Nighteye, who all darted forward without further attacks coming at them, for the moment. 

“The boost he gave himself might have worn off,” Mind Bender suggested as they continued onward.

“Or he’s keeping the others busy,” Deku said grimly.

“We’ll have to trust that they can handle themselves,” Nighteye said firmly.

A moment later, Mind Bender stopped them and pointed at a wall that didn’t quite match up to the others, and loud crashes could be heard from the other side.

“Mirio,” Nighteye said with certainty.

That was all Deku needed to hear. With a kick and a punch, the wall crashed around him as he led the trio into another corridor that had been blocked off by Chisaki.

The sight that met him had him blinking for a moment before he sprang into action.

The whole area was in upheaval. There were two of Chisaki’s men lying unconscious on the ground amid a ton of rubble and jagged concrete spikes jutting in all directions. One of the men had a broken handgun on the ground by his side. Togata was reeling on his feet, a bloody wound just below his ribcage, his cape torn off and wrapped around...Eri? The little girl looked absolutely terrified, huddled on the ground behind Lemillion, who looked ready to drop.

“Sir! Help them!” Deku said with fury in his tone.

Chisaki was a few meters away, crouched over the prone form of one of his men. Deku realized a moment too late what was happening as the man on the floor began to move, and was _absorbed_ by Chisaki. A moment later, Chisaki’s form grew bulkier, he sprouted two extra arms from his shoulder blades, and he became a thousand percent more menacing. The plague mask that Chisaki normally wore as part of his ensemble was now an actual part of his face, protruding like some sort of steampunk inspired beak. He had become a grotesque mockery of his former self in his effort to best them.

“I’m in a real bad mood,” Chisaki said in a deep, gravelly voice. “But things are looking up, now!”

Deku moved to position himself between the three he needed to protect, never taking his eyes off of the amalgamated monster that Chisaki had become.

“I’m a clean freak; I hate being touched,” Chisaki said, breathing heavily with a mixture of anger and excitement. “When someone touches me, I lose it. I’ve never been pushed this far before.”

He looked at his new hands (that resembled claws more than anything) as he spoke. Deku wanted nothing more than to leap at him and pound him into the ground, but he had no idea what the quirk of the man Chisaki had assimilated was. Could he use the other man’s quirk, now?

“You’re all diseased!” Chisaki told them. “All of you heroes. You could have just left me alone. You could have walked away and you could have kept living your diseased, deluded, _infected_ heroic life, instead of having to lose your quirk forever.”

Izuku’s blood turned to ice when he realised that Chisaki was talking to Lemillion.

“Your reign of terror ends here,” Sir Nighteye said from behind Izuku. “Mirio. Take the girl and escape while Deku, MInd Bender and I take care of Chisaki.”

Izuku glanced to his right and saw Hitoshi, capture weapon in hand, voice amplifier in place.

There was shuffling and sobbing from behind them as Sir Nighteye urged Togata and Eri out through the hole they’d made in the wall to the other corridor.

“You won’t be taking Eri anywhere.” Chisaki growled out, taking a step forward.

“Go, Lemillion!” Izuku shouted. “Take Eri! Get her out of here!”

Something whizzed between Deku and Mind Bender from behind and struck Overhaul in the chest, knocking him back a step. Suddenly, Nighteye was past the two students and grabbing Overhaul’s arm while sweeping Overhaul’s legs out from under him. He dodged lightning fast blows, and it was obvious that he’d used his _foresight_ to predict the coming moves to be able to keep up that well. He needed to keep Chisaki from closing the hole in the wall and cutting off Lemillion and Eri’s exit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a couple of more chapters to go before this is finished! WHEW!


	35. It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The heroes are determined to save Eri... but at what cost?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fasten your seat belts, everyone - this is the final chapter!

Overhaul’s transformation seemed to have renewed his energy and healed his wounds. With his quirk, he could likely just heal his own wounds as they happened.

While his mentor kept the villain busy, Izuku turned to Hitoshi. 

“I’m going to need to use it,” he said. “If I can’t bring it out on my own, I want you to make me do it. If I can, I need you to make sure I can turn it off.”

“Got it,” Hitoshi said, no question in his mind of what his friend was asking for.

They were both forced to leap out of the way of jutting concrete that Chisaki was sending at them, as he tried to trap Sir Nighteye and impale him. Izuku focused hard, trying to force _black Whip_ to manifest, but was having trouble, because he was constantly being forced to dodge. His iron soles saved him twice from being impaled on jutting rock, and he used them again and again to smash through, kicking as much debris at Overhaul as he could with the speed of a high-powered slingshot. 

Suddenly, Chisaki managed to impale Nighteye through the leg with a sharp spear of rock, causing the hero to cry out momentarily in pain before he stifled it. Izuku knew he would not want Lemillion to try to come back to check on the battle. The wound was ugly; the point of the spear entered his leg just below the side of his left knee, and exited through the top of his thigh, effectively pinning him in place. A moment later, another spear shot out and broke the base of the first, tearing it from his leg in the most brutal way. It was a grisly sight, with blood pouring alarmingly through Nighteye’s fingers.

“SIR!” Izuku shouted frantically, not able to look away for long enough to assess how severe the damage to his mentor might be.

“Don’t lose focus,” Sir Nighteye ground out, teeth gritted against the pain. “I can make a tourniquet out of my shirt; it’s not like I’m going to wear it again.”

Izuku winced inwardly at the weak attempt at humor - the characteristic that Sir Nighteye had said he valued so highly..

“**_Do you hear that, Eri_**?” Chisaki was calling out loudly to the girl with a mouth that had appeared in his palm, “**_They’re going to die because of you, Eri. If you come back now, you could put a stop to all of this. I can fix them up as good as new! If you don't, they'll die, and it will be YOUR fault._**”

“Bullshit,” Hitoshi ground out. Then he had an idea. He adjusted his voice mask and issued out in Chisaki’s voice, “**_Who am I kidding? I’m going to kill them, no matter what you do! Run Eri! Run, and see if you can get away from me! RUN!_**”

Chisaki actually looked shocked for a moment before saying, “Very clever. A mimic quirk, I suppose?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Hitoshi asked slyly.

“Insolent--” Chisaki froze for a moment, his eyes turned glassy and blank. Izuku had just a second to mentally start cheering, but the man seemed to shake off the mind control almost immediately.

“Shit. He’s basically two people right now,” Hitoshi said angrily.

Izuku hadn’t even considered that. Mind Bender’s control wasn’t strong enough at this point to control TWO wills. Any lunatic who had come far enough in the Shie Hassaikai to be this close to Chisaki had to have an incredibly strong, albeit insane, will.

“Both of you, get out of here,” Sir Nighteye said, “Or we’re all going to die! I foresaw it!”

“Not happening,” Deku stated. “I don’t care what you saw--I can change the future! _You_ go and and get your leg fixed. Mind Bender, you should help him!. Go find Lemillion and get Eri out! Her safety is priority!”

“As if I’d leave you on your own,” Nighteye said, launching another of his hyper-density seals at Overhaul, hitting him in the head. “There’s no fixing this leg, anymore.”

“You need me here to help with Black Whip,” Mind Bender said pointedly.

“ENOUGH!” Overhaul raged, crouching to put his hands on the ground.

“You ready, Deku?” Mind Bender called from across the room.

“Do it!” Izuku cried back.

A moment later, Izuku blacked out for a second, and when he was released from the trance, Black Whip was flowing through him, thick ropes of black energy writhed around him, undulating without purpose. He wasn’t sure what Black Whip was comprised of, but it was strong and resilient.

“Take him down,” Mind Bender shouted to him, dodging and leaping around the violently changing space to avoid the same fate as Sir Nighteye. His footwork and gymnastic ability had improved exponentially since the last time Izuku had seen him execute those types of moves.

Izuku was no longer under Mind Bender’s control, possibly because he’d been released, but more probably because of the pain coursing through his arms and hands. Either way, it was up to him to stop Overhaul from here. There was no alternative.

A jagged rock shot up from the ground and knocked Mind Bender hard enough to make him fly through the air and land heavily a meter away, a bloody gash on his forehead. He managed to turn onto his back, but seemed stunned and unable to sit up right away. A spike of rock shot up beside him and tore a gash in his hip, but that was the worst of it. At least his hadn’t been knocked unconscious. 

Suddenly, the room became still, and it threw them all off center. The floor quit rumbling and heaving, and in the eerie silence that followed the cessation of movement, the only sounds were everyone’s labored breathing.

Deku looked around wildly and was shocked to see Eraserhead in the opening of the wall, hair lifted into the air in proof that he had his quirk locked onto Overhaul. The monstrous fusion remained, but Chisaki’s quirk was nullified, keeping him from using the room against them. “Deku...wrap this up before Nighteye bleeds out.”

The sudden lack of chaos enabled Izuku to focus enough to send Black Whip sailing toward Chisaski, winding around both sets of his clawed arms and lashing them tightly to his body. 

“Why can’t any of you see the big picture, here? I’m going to reset the whole world! There will be equality and acceptance for everyone!” Overhaul shouted frantically. “She has the power to reset humanity to a time before quirks and make everyone _NORMAL_ again!”

Izuku suddenly _knew_ just what he needed to do to control the whips, and pulled them strongly enough that he could hear the villain's bones cracking before he stopped tightening them. He gritted his teeth and told himself that he was a _hero_, and it wasn’t up to him to sentence this monster, or carry out his punishment.

It was then that Eri crept through the hole in the wall, trembling from head to toe. The shifting rubble under her bare feet drew all of their attention. She had the remnants of Lemillion’s cape wrapped around her shoulders like a blanket, dragging on the ground behind her. Her hair was a tangled mess, and there scrapes on her knees and tear-tracks staining her cheeks. The horn on her head seemed a few centimeters longer than before, but otherwise looked ordinary.

“Get Eri out of here! “ Deku shouted, his heart already racing and beating hard enough to be heard in his own ears. “Nighteye! Convince her!”

“Eri. Eri, come to me,” Nighteye said weakly, beckoning her with a bloody hand from where he was trying to staunch the steady blood flowing from his leg, despite his best attempt as a tourniquet. “Let’s get you out of here.”

“Eri! Come to ME!” Overhaul demanded in a manic voice. His breathing was labored from having his chest constricted by whips.

Eri stopped and crouched in the rubble for a moment. She looked like she was about to break down completely, she was trembling so hard. “You. You _hurt_ me,” she said in a high, childlike whisper. “You hurt _everyone._”

“Come with me, Eri,” Nighteye coaxed, “And he won’t hurt you any more.”

“I can stop him,” Eri whimpered, standing again and walking closer to the immobilized villain. 

“You don’t have to listen to him anymore,” Mind Bender said in the kindest voice he could manage while still trying to pick himself up. “Just leave here, and let us take care of it. You’ll never have to see him again. Turning yourself over to him won’t make him stop trying to hurt us.”

“Nothing ever stops him,” Eri said sadly, her voice a little stronger as she moved so close to Overhaul that Izuku felt sick with worry. “But _this_ might.”

Eri, will you please listen to me?” Mind Bender tried in an attempt to brainwash her into leaving on her own.

Eri didn’t reply. She only straightened her shoulders resolutely and carried on.

“Eri, we’re here to rescue you. Let us help you by helping us get you out of here,” Eraserhead tried, not breaking eye contact with the monstrous villain.

No one actually saw what was in her hand as she reached up and _pushed_ into Overhaul’s leg with all the might in her tiny frame. It almost looked like she was trying to topple the monster with as hard as she leaned into him. When her hand dropped, something small, cylindrical and red fell to the floor with a hollow _’tink_. 

A bullet with a needle on the end. She had just used it to pierce Overhaul’s skin. 

The scream that came from both Chisaki’s ‘beak’ and the obscene extra mouth on his palm was ear-splitting and full of rage.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE, YOU LITTLE BITCH?!” the monster screamed, straining against the hold of the whips, which didn’t budge under Izuku’s grip.

It was a moment before Izuku noted that Aizawa’s hair was no longer raised, and he wasn’t using his quirk. Eri had backed away from Overhaul and into Sir Nighteye’s embrace. Aizawa kept facing the monster as a precaution, but backed through the rubble carefully toward the wounded Nighteye and the frightened girl.

“This… This isn’t what I saw at all,” Sir Nighteye whispered in wonder, wrapping an arm around the frail shoulders of the little girl.

“I told you I would change the future,” Izuku said with a feral grin. 

“No...but I think Eri did,” Sir said softly, hugging the girl close.

“What do I do with this piece of garbage?” Deku asked Eraserhead.

“Knock him out,” Aizawa suggested. “Until the police can take over.”

Lemillion came panting into view through the hole in the wall then, skin gray and feverish looking. He was crawling slowly on his belly, leaving a trail of blood behind him and gasping out, “Eri! Eri come back!” over and over.

“Mirio!” Nighteye shouted as loudly as he could. He was growing weak from blood loss and couldn’t possibly last much longer.

“Is she safe?” Mirio gasped out on a half-sob.

“She’s safe, Mirio. You did an amazing job,” Sir promised him. 

Having had enough of his friends being hurt, Izuku pivoted and braced, then used Black Whip to _slam_ Overhaul into the ceiling, then into the wall for good measure. He didn’t let the bindings loosen, even when the figure was slack and breathing with a ragged gurgle.

“That should do it,” Mind Bender huffed out on a half-laugh. 

“You’ve done well,” Eraserhead told them, placing a hand under Nighteye’s chin to look at his face and check for signs of shock.. “But all of you need medical treatment.”

As if summoned, several people arrived on the scene at that moment, including Ryuukyuu, Uravity, Froppy and several police officers. They swarmed in all directions, taking stock of the situation and moving to help.

“Lemillion!” Uravity cried out, rushing to kneel by his side. “Hold on, we’ll get you taken care of.”

Once police arrived, Eraserhead used his quirk to help Deku turn off Black Whip. From there, Overhaul was handed over to the police, still raging and shouting empty threats as he was put in an iron maiden for transport to Tartarus. Medics flooded onto the scene, and ambulances were called in. 

Nighteye’s leg was badly damaged, and he let Aizawa take charge of Eri when the medics arrived to transport him to the ambulance. As the men rushed Nighteye away for treatment, the little girl clung to Aizawa tightly, burying her face in his capture weapon, still trembling.

“Will Lemillion be okay?” she asked in a small voice.

“Yes,” Aizawa said softly. “We all will, thanks to you.”

The girl’s eyes widened at that, and she let out a little sob. Her expression was a storm of emotions that flitted across her face, one after another, showing that she didn’t know what she should feel. Izuku knew that feeling all too well. Aizawa’s expression softened as he wrapped his arms around her in a protective embrace.

Izuku used the first aid supplies in his pouches to tend to Hitoshi, who had a hell of a goose egg on his forehead from where the rock had bashed into it. This hip was bleeding and would likely be black and blue for days after this, but it was already beginning to clot as Izuku put pressure on the wound with a bandage from his pouch.

Uraraka helped the police by making the iron maiden weigh nothing as they removed Overhaul--or whatever it was that Overhaul had become. She saw Mirio safely onto a stretcher the paramedics had brought, using her quirk to make him float gently. He cried out in pain, the tears leaking from his eyes washing the dirt from his cheeks and temples in thin stripes, almost making his face look cracked. He was losing his battle to remain conscious. 

“Lemillion,” Eri breathed when she saw him. “No! This is my fault! Chisaki was right! I’m cursed!”

“No, Eri! That’s not true!” Deku told her firmly. “You saved us!”

“Hey! Calm down!” Aizawa said when she started to squirm in his arms. 

Eri pushed and squirmed until Aizawa set her down, and she ran to the stretcher that Togata was lying on. “You have to be okay! You promised!”

Deku went to lift her again, so she could see Lemillion from a better vantage point. It was then that he noticed that her horn was glowing. Izuku could _feel_ the power starting to flow through her, a tingle in his limbs stronger than One For All normally left him with.

“Eri,” Deku said gently. “What are you doing? Are you okay?”

“He has to be okay!” she insisted, leaning down so quickly that Izuku almost lost his grip on her.

“Eri,” Lemillion groaned, lifting his right hand with as much effort as he could muster to grasp hers. “It’s okay.”

At that moment, the glow traveled down from the tip of her horn to envelop her whole body, then traveled over to Deku, who was holding her, and down Togata’s arm from the point where his hand held hers. His entire body began to glow. While they watched, the wounds on Lemillion's face began to close and heal over and his eyes widened in surprise. Izuku was so focused on seeing Lemillion be healed, that he didn’t even notice his own small wounds disappear. 

“Eri. Eri, thank you! I’m better!” Mirio said in a strong voice. He even sat up and let go of her hand to cup her face gently. “You can stop now.”

“Eri?” Izuku said, suddenly aware that the tingle in his body was becoming painful. “Do you know how to turn off your quirk?”

“I can’t!” she cried out in alarm. “I can’t! I’m sorry!”

“Eraserhead!” Hitoshi said, but their teacher was already ahead of him. He fixed his stare on Eri, the tiny girl collapsed, exhausted. The glow disappeared, and Izuku and Lemillion looked at each other in shock.

Izuku transferred her weight to a better position to carry her in, and Lemillion leaped off of the gurney to make room for her. She looked even smaller when lying on the narrow mattress, surrounded by medics who swarmed in to take her vitals and tend to her.

“I’ll have to ride to the hospital with her, in case she wakes up and her quirk activates again. Lemillion, you should come with us, just to make sure you’re fine,” Eraserhead told them.

They all nodded, and both their teacher and their senpai jogged along beside the stretcher as the medics took charge.

Izuku watched them go with a pang. It was all kind of surreal and disorienting to know it was _over_.

Izuku walked beside the gurney that Hitoshi had been loaded onto, adrenaline still humming through his system. He was having trouble believing that Eri was finally safe, and this ordeal was over without loss of life...that he knew of, at least.

“You okay? That was pretty intense.” Hitoshi asked him. “What did she do to you?”

“I’m not sure,” Izuku said honestly. “It just felt weird at first, but then it started to hurt...like a burn stings, you know?”

“You look...great, actually,” Hitoshi told him. “Like, you’ve got a healthy glow or whatever. I know it sounds stupid, but I don’t know how else to put it.”

“Hmmm,” Izuku said thoughtfully. “Her quirk is called _’Rewind’_, and she healed Togata to as healthy as he was before we raided the place. Maybe some of that spilled over into me?”

“Maybe? It was strange to see, though,” Hitoshi said.

“Hood on, kid,” one of the police told Izuku as they got closer to the entrance of the compound. “The press is bound to be out there, and from what I’ve been told, you could do without your face plastered all over the news.”

Izuku obediently put his mask and jaw protector in place, though it was a little worse for wear. His suit had held up remarkably well, though he definitely needed new gloves after Black Whip had shredded them.

He blinked as they came into the bright sunlight, and saw that police cars, ambulances, news vans, and even a helicopter had flooded the scene. Onlookers lined barriers that had been set up around the perimeter, and Izuku was forcibly reminded of being one of the people standing by, waiting eagerly for a glimpse of his favorite heroes.

“Mid-- Deku! You’re all right!” Red Riot was sitting up on a stretcher near an ambulance, completely wrapped in bandages from the neck down. His mask piece was broken, and his face was abraded and swollen.

“Are you?” Deku called back in concern.

Kirishima gave him a thumbs up, before he turned his head back to say something to...was that Fat Gum? The man was wearing the right costume, but his fat reserves had been melted away during whatever battle he’d fought.

“UGH…” Hitoshi groaned as the paramedics veered off to load him into the back of a waiting ambulance. “I hate going to the hospital.”

“You picked the wrong career, then,” one of the medics told him sardonically.

“Yeah, yeah,” Hitoshi complained. “I’ll see you later, Zu. Go make sure everyone else is okay.”

Izuku shared a fist bump with his best friend, then went to check on everyone else. He was snagged by a medic, who grabbed his arm before he could get far, and made sure he wasn’t seriously injured. By the time he had waved the fussing hands away, the ambulances holding both Hitoshi and Sir Nighteye had departed. Aizawa was climbing into the back of another ambulance with Lemillion, and looked over at Deku meaningfully. Izuku nodded in reply; Eri’s needs were far more important than his own.

“Hey! Hey kid!”

Izuku turned to see who was calling out, and saw a couple of the yakuza men sitting cuffed on the curb, with a group of policemen watching them. He tilted his head in question.

“Is Chisaki dead?” one of them asked. He had a split lip and a couple of teeth missing from his recent fight.

“No,” Izuku said, shaking his head. “But he is in custody.”

“Damn it!” the man sitting next to the first said.

“You wanted him to die?” Deku asked curiously.

“I wouldn’ta lost sleep over it,” he grunted. He had a black eye and was sitting very stiffly.

“Chisaki lost sight of the bosses’ vision. Boss never wanted us to be villains--that was all Chisaki.”

“Make sure you tell that to the police,” Deku advised, making a mental note to tell Tsukauchi, just in case he didn’t already know.

He looked around, not really sure of where he should be going. Finally, he spotted Bubble Girl and Centipeder off to the side, speaking with detectives. He headed over to them, to see what came next.

“Deku,” Centipeder said as he approached. “Good work.”

“Good work,” Izuku returned politely. “Sir was taken to the hospital. Lemillion went, too. I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do now.”

“We’ll head to the hospital to check on everyone soon, then comes the paperwork,” Bubble girl said ruefully. “I didn’t get to see Sir up close, but his leg looked pretty bad.”

“Really bad,” Izuku said grimly. “I hope they have good healers on call.”

“From what that area looked like, it’s a miracle any of you got out of there alive,” one of the policeman said, scratching his head. 

“I don’t think we were supposed to,” Izuku said ruefully. “Sir said we were going to be killed.”

Bubble Girl looked shocked by that pronouncement. “He _saw_ it, and it didn’t happen?”

“That’s unprecedented,” Centipeder said in awe.

“He said Eri was probably responsible,” Izuku said with a shrug.

They made sure that the police didn’t need them for any immediate needs, and they were cleared to leave the scene. They all ignored the press as they headed for one of the vans that had brought them to the scene to begin with.

“Deku! Wait!” Uraraka ran up to the van, waving her arm urgently.

Izuku stopped, as did the two sidekicks. Uraraka looked exhausted, and he was interested to hear what she had experienced while he’d been further inside the compound.

“Deku! I just heard it on the police scanner!” she said in a loud whisper. They were far enough away from the press that no one without a listening quirk would be able to eavesdrop. “Chisaki is _dead!_”

“Dead?” Bubble Girl asked sharply.

“Dead!” Uraraka confirmed. 

“Did I… did I do that? Did I accidentally...when I knocked him out?” Izuku was stunned by the idea. He had thought briefly (very briefly) about letting Black Whip cut him in half for his sins, but he hadn’t really planned for him to die.

“The League of Villains hijacked the convoy taking Chisaki and his men to the villain’s hospital. Shigaraki killed him. I’m guessing he used his quirk, because the police said that _’only half of him is left_’ when the Chief asked what happened.”

An odd mixture of relief, pity and fear swirled in Izuku’s mind at the thought. Chisaki was an evil man, but wouldn’t a life in Tartarus, stuck in a fusion with another person for the rest of your days be a worse punishment? He didn’t have an answer. It felt kind of like a mercy killing, in a way, though Shigaraki probably only did it out of revenge.

“That’s a pretty bold move by the League,” Centipeder said with concern. “This can’t be a good sign.”

“Well, whatever it means, it seems like the League is busy at the moment. That means that Deku is probably as safe as he can be for the rest of today, at least,” Bubble Girl said wryly. “Lets go check on Sir and Lemillion.”

Deku thanked Uravity and waved goodbye. The trip to the hospital was uneventful; they were not attacked or even paid any attention until they walked through the hospital doors. Izuku was glad he still wore his mask and jaw guard, since the lobby was full of reporters, hoping to bribe information out of the nurses and security guards on duty. When Deku and the others walked in, all cameras locked onto them as they were battered with questions.

_“Were you at the battle at the Shie Hassaikai compound?”_

_“Can you tell us what your goal was, attacking a yakuza stronghold?”_

_“There were reports of a little girl being brought out of the scene of the battle! Who was she?”_

_“Is it true that All Might’s former sidekick was killed in action?”_

Deku’s heart lurched at the last question he heard, wondering if Sir had died of his wounds. He had lost an awful lot of blood. A security guard slapped a sticker on the front of Deku’s costume that gave him clearance, and escorted them through a set of double doors, away from the cacophony of voices and intrusive questions.

“Vultures, the lot of them!” the man said in disgust, swiping his badge at a scanner in front of a second set of doors. “Don’t listen to ‘em.”

There was a triage room in front of them, with nearly every bay full of patients, with harried doctors and nurses speed walking around, attending to various tasks.

“Rock Lock!” Centipeder said, pointing to the nearest stall.

The dreadlocked hero sat up on a bed with his midriff taped up, an indicator that he probably had cracked or broken ribs.

“We got them,” Rock Lock said, giving them a smile and thumbs up. A pretty blonde woman holding an infant in her arms stood by, smiling tearfully.

They all nodded and smiled, and continued further into the room. They acknowledged or waved to various other heroes and officers as they passed, relieved to see that most of the injuries seemed to be relatively minor.

They finally came to a bed where Aizawa was sitting up with his feet dangling over, looking annoyed. He was shirtless, and had a thick bandage wrapped around his shoulder. There was an IV drip hooked to his arm and a heart rate monitor clipped to one of his finger.

“Sensei!” Izuku said, lighting up at the sight of him. 

“Nighteye’s in surgery,” he said without preamble. “His leg was pretty messed up.”

Izuku nodded gravely. “Yeah, I know.”

“He’s a tough one,” Bubble Girl said, voice ringing with hope.

“Recovery Girl’s on her way in there, now. We’ll see if he’s strong enough to have her use her quirk on him, or if he’ll have to wait until he’s rested.” His tone told them that he didn’t think she’d be using her quirk on him any time soon.

“And Tosh?” Izuku asked.

“Shinsou’s fast asleep. Recovery Girl went and saw him a couple of minutes ago. He’ll be good as new once he wakes up,” Aizawa reported.

“Eri?” Izuku asked, grateful that his teacher was such a fount of knowledge.

“Still asleep, and still feverish. They’ve got her under armed guard and she’s been sedated for the next little while. She’ll be kept in isolation for now, too.”

“Because of her quirk?” Izuku guessed.

“Yes, an uncontrolled quirk like hers would be disastrous in a lot of ways. They’re going to take good care of her, and make sure she’s able to smile again, soon.” Aizawa said.

“Kirishima didn’t look too good when I saw him, earlier, but he was awake and able to talk,” Izuku said.

“He’ll be fine. He looks a bit like a mummy at the moment; he was covered in lacerations from the beating he took, but Recovery Girl’s got him on the mend.”

“That’s good to hear,” Izuku said with relief. “Um...we heard just before coming here. Chisaki’s…”

“Dead. I heard,” Aizawa said with a sigh. “Not a huge loss, but you can’t question a dead man. There are still a lot of unanswered questions, and I’m not sure any of his men can answer them all.”

“And how are you doing, sensei? Need anything?” Deku asked, feeling bad for not inquiring about it first.

“I’m fine,” Aizawa said shortly. “ Just a few stitches. They’re making a big fuss over nothing. Recovery Girl can fix me up later, if she wants.”

Izuku mentally translated that to mean that he had some injuries, but he didn’t want to be drained of the energy it would take to fix them until he was sure everyone else was taken care of. 

“Were you able to call Present Mic to let him know you’re okay?” Izuku asked cautiously. 

Normally, he wouldn’t inquire about his teacher’s personal life, but he knew _he_ would want someone to call his loved ones to let them know he was all right, if they knew he was on a big mission.

“Yes,” Aizawa said with a lifted brow.

“Ah...Good,” Izuku said, not pushing any further than that.

From there, Bubble Girl and Centipeder went to the waiting room by the operating theater. Izuku was ordered to undergo a checkup to make sure that Eri’s quirk hadn’t had an adverse affect on him that wasn’t making itself known yet. Since One For All was still in tact, Izuku wasn’t too worried. It seemed that Togata was undergoing a full body scan, as well, just to be on the safe side. 

By the time the scans and check-up was done, a lot of the heroes and police had been allowed to leave, but even more had arrived to check on their comrades. Recovery Girl had made the rounds, so many of the injured were sleeping to get their energy back, or looking distinctly drowsy.

“You get cleared by a doctor?” Aizawa asked him, now unhooked from all the machines and tubes and standing in the hallway sipping coffee from a paper cup.

“Yes!” Izuku said cheerfully. “In fact, he says that some of the damage to my joints was repaired, too. I don’t know how far back I got _rewound_, but I feel pretty good.”

“Silver linings, I guess,” Aizawa said. He stood up straighter and sighed. “Look, Deku...Sir Nighteye was pretty badly injured…”

“He didn’t die, did he?” Izuku demanded, face going from cheer to terror in an instant, recalling the reporter’s question earlier.

“What? No!” Aizawa was quick to correct that assumption. “He’s not dead, but he did lose his left leg. It was too badly damaged to save. He’s still in surgery and probably will be for a couple of hours.”

“Ah, damn it,” Izuku said sadly, looking at the floor. 

“You know this wasn’t your fault, don’t you?” Aizawa asked, eyeing him carefully.

“Yeah. I know. I’ll probably still feel guilty about it, but not because I blame myself. It was insane back there; I thought we were all dead,” Izuku admitted. “So did he. I guess this is the better alternative, though it still stinks.”

“You kids are going to be sent back to the school, so the staff here can concentrate on the remaining wounded who still need care,” Aizawa told him. “Normally, you’d have a ton of paperwork to fill out and reports to file, but this is an exceptional case. That stuff can wait.”

“Could I be allowed to stay until Sir gets out of surgery?” Izuku asked, already suspecting the answer.

“Have you forgotten that the League of Villains is still out yo get you? _And_ that they just murdered someone? It’s not a good idea. We’ll keep you updated.”

Izuku was forced to accept the wisdom in his teacher’s decision and dutifully changed clothes and met back up with the other UA students being sent back. It seemed surreal that it was only about three o’clock in the afternoon. 

Hitoshi looked dead on his feet, and was swaying slightly as he sipped a paper cup of coffee he’d scrounged up somewhere. Kirishima still looked pretty swollen, battered and sleepy, but was on his feet and smiling. Amajiki looked equally tired, and had a long, pink stripe down his face where a cut he had gotten was still healing. He was leaning heavily on Togata, who looked indulgent, but preoccupied.

“They’re not letting you stay to wait, either?” Izuku asked him quietly.

Togata shook his head sadly, then perked up.”Don’t worry, MIdoriya! Sir won’t let this slow him down! He’ll be back to hero work in no time!”

Izuku forced a smile and nodded. 

Uraraka and Asui turned up at that point, both looking tired, but uninjured. They were all herded past the reporters waiting outside and into a waiting van, where they settled in for the ride home. The coffee hadn’t helped one bit, and Hitoshi was asleep on Izuku’s shoulder within two minutes of sitting down, but the girls were too tired to be struck by how cute it was. They were all nodding off only a few minutes later, with Amajiki passing out into Togata’s lap. Togata, Izuku, and the officers escorting them back were the only ones awake for the next hour, but no one felt like talking. About five minutes outside of Musutafu, Izuku turned on his phone and and cringed at the long string of vibrations that indicated that he had dozens of messages waiting to be read.

Shouto had sent a thumbs up reply. Typical. He had probably been in the middle of class when he’d gotten the message. The rest of the class had sent demands to know what was going on, and that the whole school was talking about a huge raid that was all over the news sites, with their pictures included. 

Izuku wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. They pulled up in front of the dorms at a little past six in the evening, and went to their respective dormitory buildings. The nap on the way back seemed to have revived Izuku’s friends a little, but it was easy to see they were still tired as they shuffled through the front door.

“They’re back!” Hagakure cried almost immediately.

Asui and Uraraka were tackled by their invisible friend and Ashido in a huge hug, while the rest of the household gathered around and talked at once about how worried they’d been when they saw the news for themselves.

Shouto stepped up behind Izuku and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m happy you’re safe.”

Tenya stepped forward, waving his arms to ward them all off. “Everyone! It’s not just their bodies that need a rest, it’s their _hearts_! They’ve been through an ordeal and may need space!”

Izuku recalled his moment of tearfulness at the lunch table the other day and felt his heart warm at Tenya’s attempt to keep him emotionally safe.

“Thanks, Tenya, but I’m really fine,” Izuku said with a fond smile.

“Thank goodness!” Tenya said loudly, stepping up and embracing Izuku in a hug that lifted him off his feet. “I was SO worried!”

“You’re worse than anyone, Iida!” Kaminari laughed.

“Well, we were just about to sit down to dinner,” Tenya told them, turning back into ‘mother’ mode. “You should all have some nourishment and get some proper rest.”

And that is just what they did. The meal was a loud one, with everyone wanting as many details as they were allowed to give, and since they’d all carried out their parts in different ways, there were different stories that put together the whole. Izuku was horrified to hear about the beating that Kirishima had been subjected to, and the ordeal that Uraraka and Asui had dealt with when one of the villains had tried draining their life force to increase his size. 

Shouto watched Izuku closely for the entire meal, and so Izuku did his best to seem carefree, so he wouldn’t be worried, but it was no use.

“Something happened, didn’t it?” Shouto asked quietly.

Izuku nodded slowly, looking down at his plate. “Yeah. But not the thing that should have, so it’s kind of okay. I think.”

“Do you want to talk about it? Alone, I mean?” 

No one else seemed to be paying them too much attention, so Izuku nodded again and got to his feet. They put their dishes in the sink and retreated quietly to Izuku’s room.

“It’s been a long day,” Izuku sighed, shedding his uniform shirt for a soft and faded All Might one.

“It sounds like it,” Shouto said patiently, taking a seat on the bed.

“Sir Nighteye lost his leg,” Izuku blurted out suddenly, as if it had been a cork under pressure and suddenly popped. “He got impaled through the leg so badly that they had to amputate. He was still in surgery when we left the hospital. He might _still_ be in surgery right now.”

Shouto’s eyes widened, but he waited for Izuku to get it out of his system.

“Overhaul was turning the room into a huge maze of rock spikes, and Sir just couldn’t dodge them all.” Izuku said, surprised to find he was trembling a little as he sat beside Shouto and looked down at his own scarred hands.

“You said that something else was supposed to happen?” Shouto prompted, taking one of those hands in his own and attempting to be a grounding influence.

Izuku nodded, but it took him a moment to finally say it. “We were supposed to die. Sir Nighteye saw it with his quirk while he was fighting Overhaul. He’s never been wrong before.”

Shouto’s hold on Izuku’s hand tightened, and suddenly _he_ was the one trembling. “What…” Shouto had to pause and swallow past the lump in his throat. “What changed things?”

“Eri,” Izuku said simply. “The little girl we were there to rescue, ended up saving _us_. Sho...she was so afraid and has been abused for probably her whole life, but she found the courage to do what she needed to, to save _us_.”

“How?” Shouto still seemed to be reeling for the idea that a foresight quirk had predicted Izuku’s death.

Izuku told him about how Eri had used the quirk erasing bullet made from her own body to stop Overhaul and freeze him into that horrifying amalgamation of two people forever by erasing his quirk permanently. 

“Everyone came back looking so beat up, except you,” Shouto said. “You don’t have a scratch on you. I know for sure you were right in the middle of the battle, giving your all. What else happened?”

“Eri, again,” Izuku said, a half smile catching on his lips as he said it. “Sho, she has the most amazing quirk! It’s really incredible! She _rewinds_ people! She can’t really control it, but when she does, she could be the greatest healer ever! Senpai--Lemillion-- got hit with one of those bullets and was really badly injured. When Eri saw that, she accidentally activated her quirk and rewound him back to before he got hurt!”

“That’s incredible,” Shoto said. “But that doesn’t explain how you came out unscathed. Did she use it on you, too? How badly injured were you before that?”

“Hmm? Oh! I wasn’t that badly hurt. My costume protected me a lot, and I’m pretty fast, you know. It’s just that I was holding Eri when she used her quirk on Lemillion, and got caught up in it, I guess? Since she can’t control it, anyone touching her or that she touches might get involved? Eraserhead had to use his quirk on her, or it would have been bad.”

“Izuku. Focus.” Shouto looked torn between amusement and worry as he spoke. “She rewound you, too?”

“Exactly,” Izuku confirmed. “Aizawa made me have all kinds of body scans at the hospital to make sure she didn’t do anything else to me. I’m perfectly fine, though they don’t know how far back she rewound me...some of the damage to my joints seems lessened, according to the doctors.”

Shouto seemed to relax, then. He pulled Izuku into a hug and just held onto him a few minutes.

“I wish I didn’t have License Training tomorrow,” Shouto sighed. “You’ve had too many close calls lately.”

“I’m going to be surrounded by pro heroes and police all day tomorrow,” Izuku assured him. “There’s a ton of paperwork and debriefing and stuff that still has to be done.”

“That’s the part of hero work that most people have no clue about, I think. All of the stuff that comes after the big battles,” Shouto said.

He had grown up with a hero father, so he knew better than most people how troublesome it could be.

Izuku’s phone buzzed then, and he looked at the screen to find a message from Bubble Girl.

_Bubble Girl 6:41 PM - Sir is out of surgery and in stable condition. They had to amputate a few inches above the knee. No visitors are allowed, yet. See you tomorrow._

Izuku grimaced and showed the text to Shouto before replying a thank you for keeping updated.

“I suppose I should have a look at today’s homework while I still have a couple of hours before bed,” Izuku said.

“You’re not tired after today?” Shouto asked. 

“Not physically,” Izuku said. “The rest will just take time, I think. There’s a lot to process.”

Shouto seemed to accept that answer and finally let go of Izuku’s hand. “I’ll go get my notes and stuff.”

For such an extraordinary day, it ended in a quiet and mundane way, and that was just fine with Izuku.

The weekend after the raid on the Shie Hassaikai was a busy one for Izuku. The paperwork had truly been a nightmare, with several forms that had to be done over because he’d filled them out incorrectly the first time. There were statements to the police, debriefing with several different people, and visits to the hospital to check on both Sir Nighteye and Eri.

Sir Nighteye seemed to be accepting the loss of his leg rather well, all things considered. 

“My foresight showed me a very different outcome for the raid, leaving several people dead, myself included. A lost limb seems a small price to pay.”

Luckily, a recovery that should have taken months would be reduced to mere weeks with the help of Recovery Girl, and a prosthetic leg was already being designed by one of the industry’s top support item designers. He would not be out of commission for long.

Eri was awake by Saturday afternoon, but still being kept in isolation. Izuku and Togata were allowed to go in and visit with her briefly, as long as Eraserhead was on hand to ward off any quirk related accidents. The visit went well, and the little girl seemed pleased that they’d come to see her, and that they were okay. She didn’t seem to remember much about using her quirk on them, and they didn’t bring it up. It was obvious that Eri didn’t know how to smile, even when she was obviously feeling as happy as she was able to feel in her situation, and it broke Izuku’s heart. 

They learned later that Eri was the granddaughter of the Head of the Shie Hassaikai. His daughter had abandoned Eri after the girl had ‘rewound’ her husband (Eri’s father) so far back that he disappeared from existence. Poor Eri didn’t remember or know what had happened to her father, and didn’t understand why her mother had left her. Her grandfather had taken up the responsibility of raising her, only to hand the child over to Chisaki, because the old man had thought that her quirk was similar to Chisaki’s. It was at that point that Chisaki had come up with the idea of using the girl for his plans. When the old man had protested and admonished Chisaki to stop, Chisaki had betrayed him and ‘deconstructed’ him, then put him back together with serious medical issues that kept him bed-ridden and in a coma.

The man had been found and removed from the compound, but doctors didn’t have much hope that he would ever reawaken. 

Many of the men arrested at the site had been all too happy to talk about the details of Chisaki’s reign of terror. They outlined the hierarchy, who had been loyally following him of their own accord, and the number of people he had casually killed for failing him in one way or another. Most claimed that they only served him out of fear for their lives.

The extent of the compound had been massive, and spread underneath many of the properties and streets in the area. It would take days to search all of it and determine was was evidence.

Gran had turned up from his own mission a little beat up, but tight-lipped about it all. He seemed satisfied with what he’d been told about Izuku’s performance during the raid. Izuku left out the bit about Sir Nighteye predicting his death; that was for Sir to divulge...or not.

In the end, the aftermath seemed a bit anticlimactic...which was the point, Izuku supposed. There would be trials and everything, but Izuku wouldn't’ need to be involved in those, most likely. His work studies had to be put on hold for the time being, since Sir had to work on getting well for at least a few weeks until he was ready to even try going back to work. Centipeder and Bubble Girl would hold down the fort until then, with Lemillion helping out occasionally, since he had seniority (and the League of Villains hadn’t put a bounty on his head)..

Izuku went back to attending his classes regularly, and only felt a pang of envy when others with work study were absent from class. He could, of course, look for other work study opportunities, but he felt like he had more to learn from Sir Nighteye and his crew. In the meantime, he would train (even with Bakugou) as hard as he could to learn to use Black Whip before he returned to duty at the agency.

He was a bit frantic as he caught up on his studies and was more than happy to have more time to spend with Shouto. Before they knew it, the weather was beginning to cool as September dwindled into October. 

The police were chagrined to discover that the quirk cancelling bullets were missing from the crime scene. There had been three left after Overhaul shot Togata, and then Eri had used one on Overhaul. The case was gone from the rubble, and assumed to be in the hands of dangerous people. This caused the police to hold a press conference using Togata as an example to prove that the perfected formula was flawed. They stated that he’d been hit with a bullet that was supposed to permanently destroy a person’s quirk, but that Togata had gotten his power back in less than two hours after being shot. It was technically not a lie; they just neglected to mention that Eri’s quirk restored Togata’s body to a time before he was shot. This made it appear that the quirk cancellation was very temporary, indeed. They hoped that by spreading this misinformation, whomever had stolen the three remaining bullets would view them as worthless, and abandon or discard them.

They also learned that Eri’s quirk was activated through the horn on her head. It seemed to grow as she used it, and once her fever started to fade, the horn shrank to little more than a small bump on her forehead. It was at least one way to monitor if she was in danger of letting it loose in the future. After a few weeks of observation in the hospital, it was finally decided that Aizawa would be named her temporary legal guardian, since he was the only one who could turn off her quirk in case of an accidental activation. He was also in the best position as a teacher at Yuuei to help her learn control, in the future.

Bakugou finally bested Izuku in a fight during training. Izuku had been concentrating so hard on using Black Whip, that he’d let his guard down, and had taken a nasty hit from one of Bakugou’s explosions. Surprisingly, Bakugou hadn’t gloated too much about it, and had even helped Izuku get to his feet afterward, so they could go another round. They might not ever make it to the level of being friends, but in time they could learn to work together without animosity between them.

Shouto learned that his brother Natsuo had been paying regular visits to Tartarus to try and reach his brother, but so far, Dabi had been refusing his visits. Both Natuso and Fuyumi had been writing him letters though, and the guards reported that he had been observed reading them. Shouto wasn’t sure what that meant, or if it would ever lead anywhere, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to write, or try to visit.

And so, life returned to normal, whatever that was, and Izuku allowed himself to relax and just do his best to live up to the bright future Nighteye claimed he now had in store for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that’s all folks! I hope you enjoyed the story. Not sure if I’ll ever write a sequel...I have a completely different story nibbling at the back of my brain that I need to think about for a while (How do y'all feel about werewolves?). Thanks for those of you who have stuck with me and faithfully commented throughout this runaway train. I never had an outline or a clear idea of where it was going to end until I pretty much got here! I appreciate each and every person who took the time to read, comment, send kudos, and ever point out some of my more egregious errors! I tried to answer every comment, and if I missed answering yours, please know that I didn't mean to, and I value every single one! Til next time!

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I hope you're liking it so far! Please hit that "kudos" button, if you would, and drop a comment if you feel compelled! (Please feel compelled!)


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